


Gathering Dust

by SkyLeaf



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Destiny, F/F, Families of Choice, Fate, Friendship, Gen, Good Ganondorf (Legend of Zelda), Grief/Mourning, Illnesses, Link (Legend of Zelda) Needs a Hug, Reincarnation, Self-Acceptance, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Strangers to Friends, Trauma, Zelda (Legend of Zelda) Needs A Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:15:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 269,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26734945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyLeaf/pseuds/SkyLeaf
Summary: It happened in the blink of an eye, the rumbling of Hyrule Castle Town suddenly replaced with silence as death descended on the world. Left behind as the sole survivor, Zelda cannot deny that she is fleeing from more than just the memories haunting her as each passing day adds to the weight of her despair, and when a chance meeting allows for her path to cross those of two strangers, it soon becomes clear that they all have more to make peace with than merely their own past as they set out to make sense of what has happened.
Relationships: Ganondorf & Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Ganondorf & Link (Legend of Zelda), Ganondorf & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Paya/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 48
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All right, so I just want to put this little disclaimer/warning here:
> 
> I first began to think about writing a fanfiction with this kind of plot over a year ago. As such, back when I began to write down and plan the plot, COVID-19 was not a thing yet. My reason for wanting to make this very clear is that this fanfiction has nothing to do with the current situation in the world. My intentions are not to comment on COVID-19 or the responses to it, just as I am not trying to make the backstory of this fanfiction resemble the current crisis.
> 
> If you are reading this, I want to thank you, as I don’t want to leave any doubts about how no elements of this fanfiction are meant to reflect what is happening right now.

The world should have ended with a cacophony of sounds. There should have been sirens in the streets, screams echoing around her as the world shifted, like the axis of the planet itself had moved, forcing everything to tilt along with it, and flung every last existence out into nothingness. It could not have been more than a few hours since that was how Zelda would have envisioned the end of the world: with flames rising up to devour everything.

Perhaps it would have been easier that way, everything gone within seconds, leaving nothing behind for her to try to cling to. But, of course, the world did not end with a violent flash. Instead, it ended with the smell of sweat clinging to the air around her and the recorded voice telling her that every line was in use when she yelled for them to send someone, heart sinking even deeper into her chest every time she would end up being disconnected again to instead listen to the hollow sound of ringing that would echo for a moment before she punched in the number again. As much as she fought against the temptation to let her mind wander, the lack of ambulances and the shrill sound of sirens was impossible to miss, and though Zelda tried to force her thoughts to abandon that course, she knew what it meant as she brought the phone to her ear to once again wait for the voice to answer, the tone having the exact same calm lilt as the previous times she had called, and repeat the process all over again. By the sixth time, the voice did not answer, a horrible silence that was only broken by the sound of shallow wheezes filling the room, even that fading away soon after, plunging her into silence. All in a matter of hours.

It should have come to an end right then and there, Zelda standing in the kitchen, clutching the phone so tightly that it would not have surprised her to see lines spread across the screen, a tiny spider’s web being created beneath the pressure. For the first time after the hours of sprinting from the kitchen to the bedroom, carrying water, towels, ice, everything she could think of that possessed even the tiniest chance of taking away the putrid stench of sweat and disease, she could regard her own heartbeat as more than just a reminder to hurry, hurry, hurry, to call the hospital again in between trying to get her father to remain conscious for long enough to finish a glass of water. As she stood there, Zelda knew that it wold have been better to not hear it at all. At least if there had been yells and pleas for someone to help coming from the street outside, she would have known that everything would somehow be normal again, that it was something that could be contained within her own home. Instead, the empty streets and lack of panic combined with the engaged lines to the hospital to form its own conclusion.

She could not stay there, that much was clear in the seconds that followed the curtain of silence that fell over the city. It should have been a worry about the risk of disease and infection that forced her to come alive again, to leave the statue she had become for a moment behind and instead head towards the coat stand to fetch her jacket like nothing was out of the ordinary and she was merely having to head back to school after having forgot about a book, but as Zelda pulled on the jacket, hands fumbling as she buttoned it up, already seeing that it was crooked, all she could think about was the silence around her and the complaints about the warmth that had slowly grown fainter over the past couple of hours before finally disappearing entirely. If she had been infected, there was nothing she could do about that, nothing to be done about any of it other than wait, and if she would die, her home would be as good as the streets outside. In truth, Zelda left because the silence outside would at least be better than knowing exactly why her heartbeat filled her ears with the sound of staccato movements as she paused for a moment in front of the writing bureau, digging through the drawer to find her passport. It fit into the pocket, settling next to the Sheikah Slate she had been unable to look at ever since the message flashing on the screen had confirmed what she already knew to be true.

The door squeaked on its hinges as she pushed it open, making it seem like it had already been years as she stepped out into the sun. Perhaps it had. At least it felt that way as she looked out over the street, taking in the sight of cars in the driveway, curtains thankfully obstructing her view into the neighbours’ houses. Placing one foot in front of another, Zelda made sure to keep her gaze firmly fixed on the flagstones in front of her as she began to make her way along the footpath, not once betraying the fragile hope that there was still a chance that she had misunderstood and jumped to conclusions by looking up.

The city was quiet around her, the sound of cars honking and the constant hum of people chatting with friends failing to appear even as Zelda left the residential area behind to instead walk between shops and block of flats. The distinctive smell of sweat stung in her nose as she recalled all the times her father had talked about making the city safer, calling her to let her know not to bother with heating up dinner for him as he would be staying late, trying his best to figure out a way to achieve just that. If he could have seen the city now, deserted and with the absence of people as well as sounds coming to fill the air around her instead, she would not have been able to tell what he would have said. But he could not, would not see it.

Pulling the jacket closer around her, Zelda quickened her pace, willing the thought to disappear. Anything else, she would think of anything other than that. Compared to the reasons for leaving her home and the last bit of normalcy she could perhaps have created for herself by simply refusing to set foot in that half of the house, every other thought seemed like a welcome distraction, so as the buildings around her changed, the skyscrapers giving way to a park, the city library soon towering up in front of her, Zelda allowed her mind to slip out of the tight confine she had tried to force it to inhabit for the first time since she had realised that she would never be able to bring enough water to her father.

Zelda had only just made it around the corner, already envisioning how she would step into the town hall to find that there was a plan, that there would be adults who would tell her that they knew what had happened and were searching for survivors, recording her name to make it possible for any surviving relatives to find her, when she saw the car.

Having been left in the middle of the street, motor still running, the sound impossibly loud against the backdrop of silence, she would never have been able to miss it, and yet, as Zelda came to a sudden halt, heart racing like she had run for hours on end, it still felt like it could not be real, like she was imagining things. She did not know how long she stood there, staring at the car like it was a mirage that would disappear the next time a gust of wind hit it, but finally, Zelda forced her legs to obey her, carrying her towards the car.

It was small, that much was clear, and even if Zelda had never cared much for any car component that was not directly connected to the motor and inner machinery itself, she could see that it was not a car meant for a large family, not the kind of car that would be used as a makeshift ambulance as a last, desperate effort at getting a loved one to the hospital. Her breathing quickening, Zelda did her best not to get her hopes up, not to imagine that she was saved just yet. For all she knew, it could be a coincidence, a car having been left behind as the same kind of blind panic that had filled her along with the realisation that no one would come to help had convinced its owner to leave it behind. Still, as much as she tried, the way the car was left in the middle of the road with the motor running was not something Zelda could ignore, the idea of it all soon being taken care of growing in her chest as ten metres became five, two, one.

Using her hands to block out the sun that still bathed the world in garish light, Zelda leant in towards the right-hand side window.

There was a person sitting inside. A few hours ago, she would perhaps have thought that they had fallen asleep, might have identified them as a well-off university student or someone having borrowed their parents’ car to study, only for exhaustion to catch up with them. Now, however, Zelda saw the blank, unseeing gaze and stiff position for what it was.

Stumbling backwards, a silent scream already tearing its way up her throat, Zelda pressed a hand to her chest, willing her heart to remember its usual rhythm. Blinking, hoping that the brief darkness would be enough to block out the image of the corpse, Zelda barely noticed how the world tilted around her, the pavement rushing up towards her as she fell. Even the pain of her shoulder colliding with the kerb seemed hollow, like she was not quite present there, her brain merely registering it, as the image of a blank stare once again filled her field of vision. Pressing against the ground, tiny pebbles digging into her hands, Zelda felt the acid tear at her oesophagus as she leant to the side, every last muscle in her body straining as she coughed up what felt like everything she had ever eaten. And still, the sensation of drowning, of something heavy pressing against her throat and chest, continued, now only accompanied by the sickly sweet smell of vomit.

It felt like hours before what she assumed to be her inherent sense of self-preservation forced her to stand, Zelda obeying the instinct to continue, to head towards the town hall, to keep her head down, without seeing, sensing, or hearing, only vaguely aware of the fact that the last part of the journey could not have lasted for more than a couple of minutes.

She followed the orders, reaching out towards the door handle, feeling the cold metal beneath her fingers as she pushed, the door swinging open to let her into the cool hall, did exactly as it said without question as it led her towards the stairs she had once stumbled down when she had been five, the faded scar on her knee still telling the story of how she had cried when her father had finally noticed the commotion, walked down the hallway as if she was trapped in a dream. In front of the metal plaquette with her father’s name written in cursive, followed by the word ‘mayor’, Zelda forced herself to take a deep breath, already feeling how her knees shook below her as she reached out towards the door handle.

It should be locked. With how one of her earliest memories was that of her father instructing his secretary to always remember to check that he had locked the door when he left, Zelda knew that the door in front of her would be locked and had already prepared herself for when she would feel the little piece of metal blocking her entrance. Still, she pushed down.

The door opened.

Something caught in her throat, Zelda having to lean against the door frame to continue breathing. The door had opened. She had access to her father’s office, to the tiny kitchenette where he had once shown her how to heat up her packed lunch when she had been too sick to go to school but he had been unable to find someone to look after her with such short notice, to the couch where she had fallen asleep, waking up to find that her father had thrown her favourite blanket over her, and the door had been unlocked.

Despite her efforts, as she moved forwards, falling into the office more than walking, Zelda could not keep her thoughts from returning to the only possible conclusion to the question of how the door had ended up being unlocked despite the fact that her father had never arrived to work that morning. Already, it felt like part of the world became walled off, Zelda not even daring to stick her head outside the room, the fear of finding the body of someone who had decided to get to work early that day lying in some hallway, abandoned and alone in the middle of the panic that must have gripped everyone, already rising in her chest. Instead, she moved deeper into the room, feeling almost like the seven-year-old who had looked up from her lunch, having given it just a minute too long in the microwave oven, to watch as her father sat in front of his desk, so absorbed by his work that he did not notice it as she slipped down from her chair to head towards the little fridge, armed with the stickers she had got from Urbosa the last time she had visited in search of something to look at.

The fridge was still there, the little heart-shaped sticker her father had not been able to remove still decorating the front of it, a reminder of the fact that she needed a plan, needed to calm down and think things through the way she had been taught to do in case she got lost while outside the school back before her father had decided that the school trips out of the city were too dangerous for her.

As if on cue, her stomach growled, Zelda instinctively pressing a hand to it, the repugnant smell of vomit still clinging to her as she crossed the room to open up the refrigerator door.

A few bottles of water, a bag of rye bread, and some butter was what met her, a cursory glance on the dates of the containers letting her know that it would at least not aggravate the issue of feeling sick. Still, it could have been fresh from the supermarket, and Zelda would still have had to face the fact that, with her last hopes of finding adults inside the town hall having been destroyed within moments of arriving there, she would still have to figure out a way to find more food, to secure a source of water. Casting a glance towards the sink, Zelda counted to herself as two drops of water fell from the faucet, a quiet crash filling the room as they hit the metal sink. For now, there was water in the building, but it would be naïve to think that it would remain that way, much less to think that it would be safe to drink for long. Mentally trying to sum up every resource she was used to having within arm’s reach, Zelda did her best to keep the despair at bay, focusing on one thing at a time.

Food and water, she would be able to get from stores. If not any shops nearby, at least the supermarket close to the park would be sure to have enough food to last her for long enough to allow her to formulate a more permanent plan, Zelda doing her best to ignore the matter of whether or not the stores would have had time to allow customers to enter before the disease took hold of society, whether or not she would have to face the bodies of cashiers and customers to get food. It all depended on the time, on exactly how much time she had wasted with trying to get her father enough water to make up for the cold sweat before she had finally called the hospital, how much time she had spent wandering around while trying to reach the town hall. As long as she could get into the stores, she would find food, and despite Zelda being certain that this was not something Purah, all her eccentricities aside, had ever pictured when forcing them to learn about the finer workings of locks as a part of her lessons, as long as her instructions would be enough to let her open locked doors, it would suffice. Should all else fail, she could resort to the method of a brick through a window.

For the first time since she had been disconnected from the hospital’s answering machine for the last time, Zelda dared to dig out her Sheikah Slate, glancing down at it for only a moment. The image of a nearly depleted battery flashed on the screen before disappearing, the phone remaining dead even as she tried her best to force it to turn on again.

Adding electricity and a way to accurately tell time to the growing list of things she needed to get under control again, Zelda staggered through the room, only barely reaching the couch in time before her legs buckled beneath her, sending her crashing towards the slightly too rough surface if the bolster.

There were countless issues she needed to take care of, possibly corpses within metres of where she was, but as Zelda tried to summon the strength to force herself to move, to get up and get started on what she knew had to be done, she found that no amounts of telling herself that she should be better, that she should be grateful for surviving, was enough for her to push away the heavy sensation that felt like it moved to settle on top of her chest, forcing her to lie down, barely able to breathe as she looked up at the ceiling above her.

From the window, bright rays of sun illuminated the room, every colour seeming like a fake version of itself, like the world had become a seven-year-old’s drawing, bright and cheery in an attempt at covering up everything underneath, and still, not even the brightness was enough to keep her awake as Zelda leant back, her legs still dangling over the edge of the couch, the jacket not doing much to protect her from the coldness that had filled her entire body, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

+++

The first second after waking up came with the blessing of forgetting. For a few, brief seconds, she could almost believe that she was a child again, having fallen sleep despite having tried for hours to convince her father that she was not tired at all. The relief was shattered by the rough fabric of the couch and the constrictive fit of the jacket around her shoulders. Still, Zelda kept her eyes closed, willing herself to return to the blissful ignorance for a second time. The moment of forgetting never arrived, however, leaving her to lie there for another minute, before having to open her eyes.

Nothing had changed while she had been asleep. It was what she should have expected, and yet, there was something about the way everything had been left exactly as it had been when she had first entered the room that felt deeply wrong.

Pushing herself up into a sitting position, trying to rub the soreness out of her neck, Zelda kicked at the carpet on the floor. Seeing it move from its carefully measured spot, the edge of it pushed up to create a fold her father would have smoothened out within seconds to remove any risk of stumbling over it, felt better than it had any right to do, even as she glanced out of the window and saw the orange fire of sunset painted across the sky.

No one had come to move things within the office or to tell her to get out, nor would anyone come to do that. They never would.

Zelda shook her head, doing her best to keep track of her train of thoughts. She could not allow herself to dwell on that. Already, she could feel the heaviness settle into her bones; if she spent another second thinking about the smell of cold sweat and the glasses she had resorted to carrying on a breadboard to get as much water to her father as quickly as possible, if she allowed herself to return to the moment where she had realised that the car had not merely stopped in the middle of the road as the result of a tired university student being reckless, she would not be able to continue. If she wanted to be able to move forwards, she could not lose momentum for even a moment.

The realisation that the rational thing to do was to look for survivors should perhaps have been a welcome one, given how it would force her to leave the office and the carpet that was already slowly returning to its original state with the help of gravity, but as she sat there, Zelda could already see how it would end. A quiet city and her, walking along the streets she had known for most of her life as she looked for any sign of there being anyone out there who was like her, alone and lost. The truth was that she did not possess the energy to do that, not in that second at least.

Without her phone, Zelda had nothing but the sun’s position in the sky to base her estimate of how much time had passed while she had been asleep on, but even then, she was able to say with a high degree of certainty that it should not have been so easy to slip right back into a comfortable sense of nothingness as it was.

+++

Once, Zelda had wondered how animals evolved to adapt to new situations. Perhaps it had simply been her own preference for stability and predictability that made her wonder what the teacher was talking about, trying her best not to focus on the fact that it seemed like she was the only one in her class pondering just what it felt like to have every habit disappear in an instant, but it had always seemed unlikely to her that anyone would be able to change their usual patterns so quickly. And yet, here she was, standing in front of the sliding doors to Hyrule Market, having crossed the carpark with her jacket wrapped around her to provide her with a bit of comfort, trying to figure out just how she would approach the task in front of her. The key was to divide it into smaller tasks, that much was clear to her already. She was not there to figure out just how she could ensure having enough food, not yet at least, but rather to find a way to enter the supermarket, find the food that would spoil the fastest, and then bring it back to the office in the town hall she had already caught herself thinking of as her home twice while making her way to the supermarket.

At least the first obstacle was solved for her already, an abandoned shopping trolley having kept the sliding doors from being able to close. Climbing over it, Zelda tried her best to keep herself from searching for an answer to the question of whether the person having left it there had been about to leave or enter the supermarket. Those questions would not do anything to help her, leaving her with more pain than answers. What mattered was that it saved her from having to break the glass in the doors herself, allowing her to push down the feeling of being about to commit a crime as she jumped from the trolley, careful not to accidentally kick it away from beneath her. As much as she doubted that the doors would even be able to close on their own, it was not a risk she was willing to accept until it would prove to be absolutely necessary.

It was quiet inside the supermarket. In a way, Zelda supposed that it was the exact same as the rest of the city, possibly the rest of the world, a hollow shell of what it had been before. But as she moved along the shelves, slowly peeking out from behind them every time she would turn around to corner to make sure that she would not be met with the sight of yet another corpse, she could not help but notice the subtle differences.

Outside, her footfalls, while loud to her ears, had sounded sure, Zelda finding a bit of comfort in the fact that the ground beneath her feet had at least remained the same. Inside the supermarket, however, she could hear the slight squeak of her shoes against the linoleum as she made her way towards the fruit and vegetables section, could hear how her breathing echoed along the corridors between the shelves as she passed by row after row of pasta and flour, all packed into neat little containers, most of them having a design that seemed to rely mostly on muted colours.

It was not until she heard the crash that Zelda realised that she had reached out, showing half a shelf’s worth of pasta down onto the floor. Most of the cardboard packaging remained intact, but the few ruined boxes of pasta were also more than enough to cover the floor in tiny spirals and shells that broke beneath her shoes as she tried to make her way out of the mess she had created.

“Hylia!” Zelda hissed under her breath, the sound of her own voice sounding almost strange to her amidst the silence.

Taking in the damage she had created in only a brief moment of anger, Zelda wondered for a second if she should bother to pick up the intact boxes, arriving at the conclusion that it would be a waste of work. Picking them up would not change the fact that she had just reduced her own chances of long-term survival by destroying long-life food.

Still, as she continued walking along the aisles, Zelda made sure to remain more conscious of her own behaviour, careful not to let herself dwell for too long as she paused in front of a stack of picnic baskets, instead only taking one to ease the transport of her food, before turning left to pick up an electric torch as well. There was nothing funny about it, but as she stood there, clutching a yellow flashlight in one hand and a basket in the other, Zelda could not suppress a disbelieving laugh. Had it not been for the fact that she had now woken up twice only to find that the world remained exactly as she had left it, she would have been convinced that this was all nothing but a nightmare that refused to end.

Zelda made sure not to think too much about why she found herself turning away from the direct path to the fruit and vegetables to instead grab a teddy bear from the children’s section, carefully placing it upright in her basket before continuing. She had learnt her lesson—not thinking about things was the easiest way to keep herself from giving in to the same kind of exhaustion that had kept her from rising from the couch for hours after waking up. Grabbing an apple and placing it in the basket, trying her best to recall everything she could remember from the month were their biology classes had been dedicated to nutrition before letting beans and peas join it was simple and easy, almost enough to distract her from the fact that everything had changed in an instant. Trying to come to terms with or even understand the fact that this would be the rest of her life, that there would be no version of the future where she would have to figure out whether she should follow her father’s wishes and attempt to pursue a career in politics or tell him that she wanted something different, was not, so Zelda kept her mind occupied with calculations and attempts at figuring out just how much energy she would have to take into account when figuring out how much she needed to eat to survive.

Through it all, the supermarket remained quiet, leaving her alone with her questions and, finally, the decision to leave the watermelon behind.

Was it stealing as she walked back towards the entrance, holding onto the basket like it was a matter of life or death as she climbed over the shopping trolley once more? In a way, Zelda supposed that it was, even if she now knew better than to dare hope for there still being someone out there who would be able to try to arrest her for shoplifting. As much as she tried to feel guilty about it, the only emotion she could muster was an empty sense of dread as she brought the basket up to her father’s office once again, the frustration as she realised that she would have been able to bring back far more food if she had only thought to use the shopping trolley feeling hollow as she bit into the apple. While she would perhaps have been able to get the trolley through the streets given the almost complete lack of cars, with how she was barely able to keep herself from falling back onto the couch to sleep for years, Zelda knew that she would not have been able to bring all of it with her to the office.

It felt like it took more energy than she would ever have thought herself capable of possessing to even bring herself to get back up after finishing the apple, but she made it, forcing herself to throw the apple core out of the window, towards the little patch of grass that separated the footway outside from the road itself. Hopefully, nature would take care of it from there.

Turning her attention towards the electric torch, Zelda tried her best not to feel like a child as she turned it on, seeing the cone of light fill the room. It was working. It was what she had expected, but still, with how she would never have thought a situation like the one she was currently in to be possible even just a week ago, it was almost more than she had dared to hope for.

With the help of the adhesive tape from her father’s desk, she was able to fasten the torch to the windowsill, pointing it out towards the street outside. Taking a moment to look at her creation, Zelda forced herself to get up, to get herself to walk down the stairs so she could at least try to convince herself that any survivor would be able to spot the homemade beacon. But every last muscle felt like it was about to give out, the knowledge that she was wasting her time by still trying to cling to the lie that she might not be utterly alone only serving as the very last thing to push her back down onto the couch, Zelda soon losing the battle to remain awake.


	2. Chapter 2

There was something about the way the loneliness made every last thought feel like it was constantly heading towards the subject Zelda did not dare to let herself think about.

Once, one of her teachers had stood in front of a classroom full of third graders, Zelda sitting among them, and told them that, if each were given a typewriter, an infinite amount of monkeys would be able to type any given text if presented with an infinite amount of time. She could not help but wonder if the same was the case for her. Perhaps the silence and isolation would give her the chance to think any combination of thoughts fathomable to humanity. It certainly felt like that as she forced herself to leave the relative comfort of the office where she at least knew what to expect to once again entertain the idea of there being other survivors somewhere out there by heading out to search for them.

Given how she had not woken up to be greeted by someone summoned by the glow of the torch, the choice to put as much distance between herself and the town hall before beginning her search for survivors was easy to make, Zelda being somewhat able to convince herself that the decision was rational and not at all influenced by the fact that any corpse she might come across would then at least not be close to the office if she only kept herself from searching in the area near her new home.

The sun had only barely begun to rise from behind the buildings as she began to walk down the road. It was easier to walk there, removing any risk of tripping over uneven flagstones, and except for a handful of cars Zelda made sure not to inspect, there was no traffic to be seen, leaving her free to walk in the middle of the road as she began to make her way towards the northern part of the city. Around her, the architecture of the buildings slowly began to change, becoming smaller and less imposing than the structures closer to the centre of the city, letting her know how the population density was slowly but surely decreasing as well.

Her chances of finding someone grew slimmer along with the buildings, Zelda knew that. But as much as she wanted to deny it being the case, she could still see the way the person inside the car had looked almost frozen, only halfway slumped over in their seat rather than lying on the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut every time she closed her eyes. Her chances of finding someone who was still alive might technically be greater closer to the city centre, but for them to be present at all meant that she would have to search for fellow survivors, in a way rendering her decision somewhat logical.

There was nothing special about the house she decided would be the one she had the courage to inspect, nothing that made it stand out against the rows of houses around it. Maybe that was part of her reasoning for picking that specific house, the fact that it felt safe, familiar, as she walked up towards the front door. She couldn’t tell, and deep down, Zelda knew that it was because she did not want to know what had made her stop. All that mattered was the she was still moving, still placing one foot in front of the other as she made her way through the driveway.

The tiny sliver of courage left her the moment she reached the front door.

It would be all right. Fighting to regain control over her breathing, Zelda tried her best to convince herself of that. It would be all right, she would just have to go inside for a moment, and then she would at least be able to leave with a feeling of having accomplished something, even if that something was simply having confirmed that her chances of being saved from having to make decisions were dwindling with every passing second. But the minutes passed, and she still stood there, feeling more and more like a statue as she tried to push back down the thoughts that fought against the constraints she had placed around them, the car in the driveway combining with the lack of light in the windows of the house to let her know what she could expect to see once she found the strength to step over the threshold.

In the end, it was the cold surface of the Sheikah Slate beneath her fingertips as she shoved her hands into her pockets that provided her with a way out. Pulling out the phone, the screen as dead as ever before, Zelda glanced towards the car parked in the driveway, something that bore a semblance to a plan taking form in her mind.

For once, she acted without giving herself a chance to second-guess the impulse, wrenching open the bonnet covering the core before kneeling down in front of it. The sight of the blue ball of energy in front of her, small tendrils curling around itself before returning to the very centre of the core once again, should by all means have been enough to make her pause and question the plan, the sound of Purah letting them know that even the smaller kinds of energy cores could cause significant damage to organic material if handled incorrectly ringing in her ears, but she continued, keeping half an eye on the core as she carefully opened up the back of the Sheikah Slate. The core that rested within it, while nowhere near as bright or intense as the one in the car was still there. If she had still had access to electricity through simply plugging it into one of the socket outlets back in the office, charging it would be as easy as letting it wait for a couple of hours. Now however, she had to put in a bit more effort.

Looking around her, trying to determine if there was any other thing she could do to increase her chances of what was indeed a sudden impulse not backfiring on her, Zelda pulled at the hem of her sleeves, pulling it down to cover her hands. Then she reached up towards her necklace. With how much her hands shook, it required a few attempts to get it off, but once she did, she pushed the pendant off, placing it on the ground in front of her before turning her attention towards the Sheikah Slate once more.

The ends of the chain of her necklace were nothing like the crocodile clips they had used in school, nor was the tiny experiment Purah had allowed her to write about for her science project comparable with what she was about to do, but Zelda still tired her best to fasten the little clasp to the core. Despite the fact that there was no one around to hear her, she tried her best to muffle the pained gasp as a tendril shot up towards her, leaving an aching sensation in her hand. Still, compared to what could have happened, it was nothing, so, trying her best to keep her hands steady, Zelda raised up the Sheikah Slate to bring it to the level of the core in the car before slowly lowering the other end of the necklace down to touch the core, careful to let go of it before it connected with the blue mass of energy.

The effect was instantaneous. Unlike back in the classroom where the process had been slow, lasting several minutes, with Purah walking back and forth through the room to glance at everyone’s experiments, Zelda barely had enough time to get her hands away from her makeshift wire before the energy began to flow through it, little, blue flickers of power floating through the air for a moment before returning to the golden chain, Zelda unable to do more than watch, halfway in awe of the fact that what should by all means have been a stupid plan and an obvious way to get herself either seriously injured or killed had worked, halfway convinced that there was something wrong, that she must have missed something serious to be able to think that it would work. But work was exactly what it did, Zelda trying her best to keep track of units, time, and calculations as she watched the energy pass from the car to the Slate. Finally, she brought an end to the connection, separating the phone from the car battery with a yank on the slate, the necklace being pulled away from the car in the process. Despite her best efforts at establishing some kind of safety measures, the end of the necklace hit what the little sliver of skin that had still been left exposed by her sleeve, Zelda trying her best to bite back a scream as she felt the incandescent metal make contact.

“Goddesses!”

But even as she shook her hand, the cold air already cooling what a quick glance told her was hopefully only a minor burn, Zelda was still not able to completely ignore the hint of joy that made it into the exclamation. It felt almost inappropriate to even note it, with the fact that the homemade experiment had only been needed because of the death of everyone she knew still drowning out every other thought, but that did not change the fact that, for the first time in days, as she looked down to inspect the Slate, Zelda could feel her pulse quicken for a reason other than dread.

It looked relatively unharmed by her decision to charge it with a core that far outweighed its own both in strength and capacity, the screen of it still dark and the edges having the same slight indent on the left side from where she had dropped it back when she had struggled to get home in time to hide the fact that she had tried to build her own phone. But flipping it around to look at the core was what made it clear that, whether positive or negative, her interference had certainly changed something. Where the core had glowed with a dim light that was more grey than blue before, it now shone, casting a blue glow op onto her hands as she closed the back of it once again before pressing the button on the side with a quick, decisive movement that did not leave her with time to doubt.

A second passed without anything happening, Zelda already feeling how the joy deflated inside of her, but then, almost like it had been waiting for that exact moment, the screen lit up, showing her the command for her to enter her password.

She could have cried. She could have leapt up into the air from joy, for a second forgetting how little it mattered whether or not she could turn on her phone in this world to instead celebrate the fact that she had been able to repair even something as tiny and insignificant as a phone. Zelda did none of that. Instead, she slowly typed in her code, letting her eyes scan the screen, noting the facts before focusing on anything else the way Purah would undoubtedly have told her to.

Fact one, the day was the same as what she had expected. While she knew that she would not be able to trust the little digital digits at the top of her screen for the rest of the life, the unexpected victory was still enough to lessen the impact of the second fact, that there was no way the clock was accurate, with how it informed her that it was the middle of the night despite the sun hanging above her head.

Switching off the phone, Zelda shoved it back into the pocket of her jacket with a quick motion. Though the experiment might have proved that the core would not melt from the increased intensity of energy, the sore spot on her hand as well as the risk she knew she had accepted by deciding to try was still enough to keep her from outright wanting to have to repeat the process a second time. Instead, she crawled towards the spot where her necklace and pendant had been left on the ground, pausing for a moment to make sure that the necklace had cooled down before grabbing it again.

By the time she rose from the ground, the Sheikah Slate safe and protected in her pocket and the necklace back around her neck, she felt almost brave, walking up to the front door before the courage would get the chance to abandon her again.

She had only just made contact with the cold metal of the door handle when the sound of barking forced her attention away from the door and towards the driveway she had just left.

There was a dog standing there.

It was not a big dog, had to have been a pet for one of the families nearby if the collar around its neck was any indication, but after having tried to accept the fact that she would be alone for the rest of her life, the sight of even a small dog was more than enough for Zelda to forget all plans of searching for survivors, finding herself approaching the dog before she had even registered what she was doing. The dog reacted just as instinctively as she had, Zelda barely getting a chance to prepare herself and protect the Slate before the dog had leapt towards her, knocking her over as it tried to lick her face.

“All right, all right!” despite everything, despite the fact that she would most likely have found several corpses if she had continued on her intended course for even a moment longer, Zelda could not keep herself from laughing as she pushed the dog’s face away, not putting any real effort into it. “You are happy to see me, aren’t you?” the dog did not answer her, but as Zelda pushed herself up from the ground again, she could see how quickly its tail moved from side to side, the passion behind it making her shake her head, unable to keep a smile off her face as she petted the overly enthusiastic animal in front of her. “I am happy to see you too!”

Something bright and silvery flashed in front of her face. The name tag bearing the name its owners had given it, she realised, and just as quickly as the happiness had appeared, Zelda felt how it disappeared again.

This was someone’s dog. Someone had cared about it and given it a name, even buying a name tag to ensure that everyone who met it would know it as well. For the dog to be here with her and react with so much joy to the presence of another living being, it had to mean that its owners were lying dead within one of the houses nearby. As much as she fought it, Zelda could not help but wonder what had happened to them, if there had been more people living together, what it had been like when they got sick. Did it all happen at the same time, leaving all of them to dehydrate in their beds without being able to help or be helped? Or was there someone who spent hours running back and forth between the bedrooms and the kitchen in a desperate attempt at getting enough water to counteract the fever and sweat before finally succumbing to the illness themselves?

Perhaps the dog was able to sense the change to her mood, for it tried its best to move towards her again, trying to lift her arm with its nose, but the only thing it obtained was turning her attention towards the fact that she still had yet to find out anything about the illness that had not been revealed to her during the hours of pretending that she had any idea about what she was doing whenever her father would ask her what the doctor had told her to do.

Eyeing the dog with a wary glance, Zelda found her thoughts returning to the fact that she had no idea where the disease had come from. It had been something they would all have been in contact with almost every second of their lives, it had to have been with how the lines to the hospital had already busy by the time she thought to call for help, that much was clear, but beyond that, it could be anything.

Trying her best to resist the urge to wipe at where the dog had licked her face with her sleeve, Zelda began to back away from the animal, keeping her eyes fixed on it for every step until she felt the smooth stones below her disappear as she once again found herself standing on the footpath. If the dog was somehow a vector for the disease, she had to believe that she was immune. Immunity was the only thing that could explain why she was alive after the city had become deserted. But rationality and calmness were concepts that felt completely foreign to her as she left the dog behind, only glancing at it for another second to make sure that it would not follow her before sprinting down the street like she would be able to flee from every last consequence if she only pushed herself to run fast enough.

Already, she could almost hear how Purah had talked about adopting a dog during the last lesson her class had had with her before the world around them had changed completely, talking about it with the same kind of scientific approach she had used for everything for as long as Zelda had known her.

Rather than appearing light, a memory of what had to become the first of a long line of victories if she wanted to establish any kind of life out there, the Sheikah Slate weighed her down as she made her way through a patch of trees before finally reaching her destination. Zelda barely paused to throw the jacket and the Sheikah Slate aside, before stepping into the cold water of Hylia River.

Despite the warm weather above her, it only took the water a few seconds to completely drench her clothes, feeling more like tiny knives digging into her skin than anything else as it made its way past the layers of heavy fabric, making her gasp. The sound was broken, Zelda shivering within moments, and still, she continued, forcing herself to continue until the water reached her shoulders, the sharp pain of it making contact with her skin begging her to return to the shore. But the memories of Purah talking about how she had already contacted a friend of hers who worked as a zoologist to track her dog’s progress on several factors and the way the dog had wagged its tail before licking her face still whirled through her mind, keeping her from even looking back towards the shore as she took a deep breath, readying herself for what was to come.

Without wasting another moment, Zelda dived, bringing her head under water.

For as much as she would have sworn that the world had been quiet for days before then, there was something about the relief of feeling the water fill her ears, blocking out any sound but those of her using her arms to keep herself from floating up again, moving through the water, that was almost dizzying. Reaching up to rub against her check, Zelda could picture the way her hair was flowing around her face, the tresses making it seem like she was an energy core not unlike those of the car and her Sheikah Slate rather than the person she was, alone and abandoned. Compared to that, the sting of the cold was laughably simple to handle, the memory of the moment the white-hot necklace had hit her skin seeming like a child’s memory of first hitting a table leg.

In the end, it was the burning reminder that, for as much as she might have wanted to, she was not able to breathe underwater that forced her to move upwards again, breaking the surface of the water to take a deep breath. Threading water for a moment, Zelda looked around her and saw the way her blouse had turned almost transparent, the fabric heavy with how the water still clung to it.

It was a sudden impulse, but so was every other thing she had done since the line to the hospital stopped working, so, rather than bothering to wonder whether she would get sick, what she would do if their water source had been the very thing to spread the disease and she was currently exposing herself to yet another way of becoming infected as well, Zelda hurried to unbutton the blouse, pulling it above her head before flinging it towards the shore. She only barely found the patience to stop for a moment to make sure that it would not be taken by the weak current of the river before continuing to her shoes and trousers, both of them hitting the ground near her blouse with a soft thud that was drowned out the next moment as Zelda once again dived below the surface of the water.

Had she still had school to worry about, she would perhaps have thought back to her psychology classes and begun to question exactly how well she was handling everything, whether or not the food and bottled water in the refrigerator and the phone that could now at least display pictures to remind her of what had been lost was really enough to prove that she was doing fine. As much as Zelda did not want to entertain the thought for even a moment, as she turned to look up through the water, the world above broken by the slight waves and pull of the current, she could not help but wonder if it was for the better that she would not be brought to face that question by a teacher, given a week to answer it with her sources listed on the essay before getting it back a week later with the grade written towards the end to be brought home and greeted by her father remarking that she was wasting her time with that elective. Her father would no doubt have told her that she had more important things to worry about if she had tried to tell him about compartmentalising and strategies to cope. But he would not hear about it, would not comment about it, and would never form an opinion on anything she might possibly have decided to tell him ever again.

Zelda did not realise that she had breathed in until the burn of the water in her lungs forced her to once again return to the world around her. Pushing against the muddy ground below, she jumped up, already trying to cough up the water by the time she felt the wind push past her head, fumbling blindly as she tried to make her way back to the shore, the water dripping from her and the wind feeling the icicles cutting into her side as she pulled herself back onto solid ground, forcing herself to focus on nothing but reaching for her clothes. Even though the stench of sweat had been joined by the smell of clothes that had been worn for almost a week, the fabric damp and crumbled after having been thrown so carelessly moments before, Zelda did not waste any time in putting it back on, her hands shaking to an extent where she had to give up as she tried to button up the blouse.

It was all right. She was all right; she had just taken a bath; she was taking care of herself. She had to believe that, even as the water from the river still burnt in the back of her throat, Zelda staggering towards the nearest tree to have something to hold onto before doubling over to cough up the last bit of water. She would be all right.

+++

As much as she might have blamed herself for not thinking to bring back more food to the kitchenette in the office, by the time she opened the refrigerator that Saturday, only to be meet by the sickly smell of rotting fruit, Zelda had to admit that she had been avoiding an issue she would have to face sooner or later when she had believed that she would ever have been able to bring back enough food to keep those thoughts at bay.

It was a realisation that saw her dig through the rotten fruit to find a breakfast consisting of little more than a few carrots, Zelda already knowing that the math did not balance out as she sat down at the desk to eat, busying herself with the plans of what exactly she would have to do to ensure that she would have a supply of food that was not finite the same way relying on the supermarkets of Hyrule was. No matter how much she might be prepared to move to where the food was, fact was that she could not imagine anything that would be able to last for the rest of her life while also not running the risk of the supply dwindling long before then.

In the end, the answer to her questions was as simple as it seemed to be an unclimbable mountain towering up in front of her. If she wanted to make sure that she would have food and enough food to offset the fact that she had little to do other than walk around the city all day without knowing what she was looking for or if she would even be able to recognise it if she saw it, she would have to grow it herself.

The memory of Urbosa trying to explain to her just how she was supposed to water the seeds she had brought along to her sixth birthday, the idea that wildberries could really grow from something as tiny as the seeds Urbosa had placed in her hand having appeared so absurd that Zelda could only halfway remember what she had been told, pushed against the seal she had kept in place ever since she had first been forced to realise that the disease that had taken hold of her father extended to more than just their house. Returning to the math of just how much she would be able to move before the issue of having to think of a way to find more food became urgent, Zelda made sure to keep the thoughts at arm’s length, focusing on the facts the way she had always been able to do before rather than the hurt that waited behind them.

The most obvious obstacle to creating any kind of garden to help against the threat of finding herself without food had to be the simple fact that, other than getting wildberries to sprout and die after a month, she did not have any experience with gardening, Zelda decided. Tapping the edge of her fork against the plate in front of her, she weighed her options. While she could undoubtedly always try her best and rely on the fact that she doubted that seeds would be among the things anyone would have thought to take when they and their friends and relatives were all dying, as she looked around in the office and saw the signs of where she had just tried her best, the Sheikah Slate still abandoned on the floor by the couch after she had tried to muster up the strength to open it to look at her photographs, the blouse that was still hanging on the coat rack by the door, Zelda had to admit that, unless she wanted to let her efforts go to waste, she had to create a plan before approaching the task.

So, trying her best not to let her mind betray her and remind her of the fact that time was one of the few things she had more of now than she could ever have needed, she gathered up the dirtied service and left it in the sink before once again pulling the blouse over her head.

At the door she paused to look back on the little scene in front of her, taking in the mess her living there had created, the dirty dishes she had allowed to become a pile in the sink even though she could easily have eaten her measly meals without even glancing towards them, the Sheikah Slate she had not found the energy to pick up, and the edge of the carpet she had folded up once again, this time using a binder to keep it that way. No one would come to see it, no one would come to clean it up, no one would come to reprimand her for having messed up the careful order her father liked to keep wherever he went, but as Zelda left without even bothering to pretend to have cleaned up, she was not sure which of those facts were the reason for that decision.

+++

The library, a three-storey structure made from brown stones and white marble located only a couple of hundred metres away from the town hall, had always seemed imposing to her, but as Zelda stopped in front of it, already feeling breathless despite having run for little more than a couple of minutes, she could not help but wonder whether it had grown in the time that had passed since the last time she had been able to present her father with a sufficient reason for her going there. It certainly seemed like that could have been the case as she stood there, craning her neck to be able to look up at the roof, clutching the picnic basket so tightly she felt how her nails dug into the palm of her hand, forming semicircles in the skin. With everything else that had happened in the time since she had left her home, the idea of the library coming alive to grow, adding another story to its already considerable collection of books, computers, and librarians who never seemed to find her interest for ancient technology stupid or silly, did not seem as unlikely as it would have done back when she was a child holding onto Urbosa’s hand like her life depended on it after having convinced her to bring her there.

Still, she could not dwell on that for the rest of her life, could not become like the statues her father had shown her pictures of in the book on the royal family of Hyrule he liked to grab from the bookshelf in the living room, so, trying her best to swallow her fears, Zelda forced herself not to think and instead continue to place one foot in front of the other as she walked into the library.

Like it had happened so many times before, moving from the street outside and into the library itself felt like entering an entirely different world. Though she would have had to be a fool to even imagine that she would be able to forget everything that had happened, simply being there, breathing in the scent of old books and that unmistakable and genuine feeling of a library, was enough to, momentarily, lessen the feeling of choking on air, Zelda walking into the hall and towards the staircase that would take her to the second floor with more energy than she had been able to muster up for days despite the meagre breakfast.

Gardening. That was what she was there to look for. Gardening, agriculture, and nutrition. That and nothing else. Repeating it like a mantra to herself, her voice having a strange edge to it that left her unable to determine whether it had been caused by the river water or by the days of disuse, Zelda moved towards the non-fiction side of the library, already relishing how the task gave her even the vaguest semblance of competence. She might not be able to create a garden from scratch, might find that it would be too difficult even with the aid of all the books in the world, but this, walking along the shelves as she counted to herself, watching the numbers on the spines of the books go up and wait for the moment where she would reach the exact interval she needed, that was something she could do and had done for as long as she could remember.

If asked later, Zelda would not have been able to explain what made her stop several bookcases before she would have reached her destination. Truth to be told, even as she stood there, she did not know what caused her to abandon her goal of finding a book as quickly as possible to save herself from having to make her way back to the town hall after the shadows had descended upon the city once again. All she knew was that she stood there, as frozen as the statues that had once decorated the halls of Hyrule Castle, staring at the book in front of her.

It was nothing special, the cover of it decorated by what looked like a picture of the Triforce that had been created by the first artist who had applied for the job, the lines of the triangles slightly crooked and the colours of each of them bleeding out into the background, the title proclaiming that it would detail ‘The Full History of Hyrule As Told by the Myths of the Realm’, and yet, she could almost feel how it drew her in, wrapping tentacles around her arm and pulling back, her hand following along to grab onto the book. There was something almost dreamlike about the way it felt in her arms as she lifted it up, not taking her eyes off it for even a moment as she turned around to walk through the room once again, moving away from the section on gardening she had come there for in the first place. Only by the time she found herself back in the entrance hall of the library did the strange, cloudlike sensation of not being fully awake nor asleep lift, leaving her to stand there, split between feeling silly for having been so easily distracted by a book cover and trying her best not to panic at the thought that she was beginning to crack beneath the pressure of being alone.

“All right.” Zelda whispered the world, feeling like she had repeated it to herself more times over those last few days than any person should ever have had reason to do, the two syllables not doing much to pierce the heavy silence around her. “Don’t panic. There has to be a reason for you to have done that. Just—think!” crouching down, Zelda felt how the book she had just been spellbound by slipped out of her grasp, hitting the floor with a thud, but even that was not enough to force her back to the world around her. “There is a reason that all of this is happening, a completely normal reason—just _think_!”

But, as much as she tried, nothing appeared; there was no lightning bolt hitting the roof above her head to mark the exact moment she arrived at a realisation. Instead, there was only the sound of her shallow breathing in her ears as she tried her best to force herself not to panic.

It was all about information. It had to be. Looking down at the book, Zelda tried her best to even out her breathing, focusing on where the pages had become crumbled from the book hitting the stones at an odd angle. If she was able to know what had happened, perhaps it would lessen the fear that every step would send her directly towards the same fate as everyone else. Maybe then she would be able to do something as simple as finding a book on gardening without finding herself panicking over a book meant for children.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the loud, drum-like sound of her pulse stilled in her ears, Zelda placing her hand flat on the floor to push herself up again. Information, that would have to be the key. Information and forming a plan that was more tangible than simply having to survive for as long as she would be able to.

With the book clutched against her chest, Zelda made her way up the staircase once more, only, this time, it was not the need to learn more about agriculture that made her move. Instead, she found herself standing among the atlases, skimming the titles of the books as she tried not to ponder the question of just how widespread the illness could have been before finally finding what she was looking for, the word ‘Hyrule’ catching the light that fell in through the tall window behind her as she pulled out the atlas, making the words on the front of the book seem like they were solid gold.

Although she knew that it had not nearly been enough time for the world to have begun to fully fall apart, it felt almost wrong for the book to be so clean, like she should have had to brush away a layer of dust to even be able to look at it, marking it as having been left behind in a way that had not been the case for the book on history and mythology and the spell that had found her standing in front of it, both unable to touch it and walk away from it. The atlas was heavier too, Zelda having to readjust both books in her arms as she moved through the room, hearing how her footfalls echoed above her, the sound amplified by the vaulted ceiling of the library. It had been less than a week since her biggest worry had been whether or not she would ever be able to chase her own dreams rather than her father’s, but as she all but threw the book down on the table, flopping down in the chair, at once feeling both light and heavy, it felt like an entirely different life, like she was not the same person she had been back then anymore.

It was an absurd idea, she knew that, knew that, as much as it might be a comforting thought now, there would be a moment where she would have to face what had happened, and yet, as Zelda flipped open the atlas, working slowly, taking in how the names of the different cities and provinces had been written near the top of each page as she searched for Hyrule Castle Town, it was a thought that kept on returning to her, as insistent in making its presence clear as the book to her right was, the Triforce reflecting the light of the sun in a way that made it seem almost like it possessed a will of its own and a desire to catch her attention.

With a sigh, Zelda turned the book around, effectively removing its chances of distracting her, before returning to her mission.

The book was a couple of years old. It was not a lot, not nearly enough for her teachers to have remarked on it if they had been using it for school, but it was enough for Zelda to give the numbers written along the edges of the pages, detailing the number of inhabitants of each city, a wider margin of error than she would otherwise have done. Even if it had not been the case, the page that contained information about her own city would still have been enough to make her feel like her heart had dropped to rest somewhere close to her stomach as she glanced at the recorded population.

Two hundred thousand.

The equation to figure out just what that meant for the survival rates was unimpressive, but still enough to leave her with a feeling of being asleep, of being trapped in a nightmare she did not know how to escape from. As much as she wanted to believe that there could be other survivors, other people who, like her, had fled from their home to instead create some kind of life inside a public building, making it next to impossible for anyone to find them despite their best attempts at achieving the opposite, despite how she could trick herself into believing that there might have been people from the city who had not been present for the outbreak, who had returned alive, fact was that even that number would be negligible next to the truth that, out of two hundred thousand people, she might very well have been the only one to survive.

More than anything, she wanted to give up. It would be the easiest thing to do, to look at the numbers and the odds of ever finding anyone to talk with again and lie down right then and there to let fate try to bring the world back onto its intended course. And, for a moment, that was really what she was about to do, Zelda already feeling how every last muscle in her body shook slightly, the idea of resting her head in her arms for a minute and then never bother to get up again seeming far more tempting than having to do everything alone from then on.

Lowering her head, Zelda had almost closed her eyes when the same flash of gold forced her to turn to the side again.

It was the mythology book. Of course it was. Though its awkward depiction of the Triforce had been the most eye-catching part of it, the little gold letters running along the spine of it had still been more than enough to send the rays of the sun back onto her face. It should have been yet another source of frustration, making Zelda want for nothing more than to shove it aside to hear it hit the floor with a dull echo and a sound of pages tearing and crumbling, but as she sat up straight in her chair, all she could do was to look at it. It had not been noticeable at first, but now, as she turned her full attention towards it, she could not help but note the fact that, despite being in a public library and the artwork on the cover making it seem like it had been made several decades ago, the book was in a strikingly good condition, the pages crisp and new, still clinging onto the soft smell of a new book. Not even the fact that she had dropped it and been brought close to shove it aside had been enough to ruin its pristine condition, the edges of it not having been bumped or given any indents.

It felt almost silly to give in to the need to make sure that the explanation was not something as banal as her having missed the signs of it being ruined, but there was little reason for her to worry about that anymore, so, trying her best not to let her thoughts move ahead of her and jump to conclusions, Zelda pulled the book closer towards her and began to leaf through it.

There was nothing. Despite its rough treatment, there was nothing to see, no slight bend on any of the pages, no tear along the top of the paper, nothing. If she didn’t know any better, Zelda would not have hesitated to believe that it had been placed there on the shelf seconds before she had arrived.

Continuing to search for even the faintest sign of use, Zelda’s eyes were caught by a thin line of text that ran along the bottom of each page, separating the page number from the information above.

With its rough edges and the way it seemed to be made up of quick, decisive lines, it could not have been more different from the curls and flourishes of the modern Hylian alphabet, but even then, as Zelda leant in further over the book, already feeling the tension between her brows as she frowned at the text, she could not help but wonder whether she had seen it before. Though she could not understand it, the more she looked at what appeared to have been meant as a band to wrap around each page, the more it felt familiar to her, like it was something she had once known the meaning of only to then forget. But how? It was nothing like the few weeks where they had been taught about the languages of Hyrule in the past, nothing like when Urbosa had brought book after book along with her whenever she would visit after Zelda had expressed a desire to learn Gerudo, being patient with her clumsy pronunciation and poor grammar and smilingly told her that she would not tell her father if she did not want her to, none of the vague understanding of a couple of words and phrases she could then use to guess the full meaning of a sentence, but the same sense of having seen the letters before was still there.

Someone was looking at her.

Rolling her shoulders to lessen the tension and mask her intentions, Zelda shot a short glance behind her, the tingling sensation of being watched still running along the nape of her neck, sending a cold shiver down her back. There was no one there. Even though she had an unobstructed view to the doorway leading back towards the entrance hall and hiding behind the nearest bookshelf would have called for far more time than she had given her observer, there was no one there.

“Hello?” Zelda called out, hating how her voice shook as she rose from her seat. Although it should have been unimportant to her, the atlas and the map it provided being far more importance to any plan she could possibly think of, as she turned around fully, she kept her hand on top of the book on mythology. “Is anyone there?”

Other than the sound of birds chirping in the trees outside and a the faint sound of a dog barking in the distance, Zelda received no answer, the silence once again filling the library to leave her to the sound of her own heartbeat as she fought to convince herself that she had been imagining things. It had to have been what had happened, her wishing that she wasn’t alone and focusing so much on the need for other people to still be alive and near her that she had been able to trick herself into believing that it could be the case.

But as much as she wanted to have blind faith in that explanation, Zelda would have lied if she had tried to deny that she kept on looking back over her shoulder as she picked up her two books and hurried back towards the town hall, all plans of learning more about gardening abandoned in favour of leaving the open streets behind.

For the first time since the world had been torn apart, as she sat on her couch that evening, the books lying on her desk, she wished that she would be able to do more than simply lock the door from the inside to place a barrier between herself and the outside world, the little piece of metal that blocked it from being opened up suddenly seeming almost meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

+++

It was almost frightening how quick she was to settle into a routine. Though it was the only thing she was able to do in her attempt at clinging onto even a bit of hope, there was something about waking up every day to eat a breakfast for no reason other than to give her enough energy to move and walk, spending the entire day wandering through the streets of the city, making attempt after attempt at gathering up the courage to set foot inside one of the block of flats nearby only for every last bit of bravery to leave her the moment she reached out towards the door, that made her feel almost like part of her might have died along with everyone else, leaving her as little more than an empty shell who continued to go through the motions, moving not because she wanted to, but because she had been programmed to do so.

And then there was the feeling of being watched.

Despite her having hoped for the opposite to be the case, the tingle that ran along the nape of her neck had not disappeared after returning home from the library. No, in the week that had followed since then, it felt almost like the sensation had grown, both in intensity and in the number of times it was able to tear her away from her thoughts, bringing her back to the world around her in a fraction of a second, making her turn away from the door to a flat she did not dare to enter with a startle to look around her. And each and every time it had happened, she turned around to see that she was alone, that the hallway in front of her was as empty as it had always been, the street she had been about to cross still little more than an extension of the footpath, the only difference between the two being the occasional car that had been left in the middle of the road she made sure not to look at.

There was no one there, and in the few moments where she was able to calm down enough to think about it rationally, Zelda knew that, even if there was someone out there who had survived, they would not waste their time with looking at her from afar. Either, they would have decided that they did not want to risk interacting with her, whether the decision was made out of fear of infection or of her reaction to seeing anyone, or they would have reached out the moment they had first seen her. To think that anyone would bother to keep track of her, to hurry along behind her, constantly ready to hide when she would find herself unable to ignore the sensation of being watched and turn around, was absurd, and still, Zelda found herself bringing the Sheikah Slate along with her whenever she would head out into the city, the phone resting in the pocket of her jacket, waiting for her to pull it out as she turned around.

Not even a week after she had first given in to the impulse, Zelda had sat down to, for the first time, properly inspect the dozens of blurry pictures that did not show anything other than a deserted city. But even then, she continued to inspect each and every photo, pulling her legs up under her as she sat on the couch to look through the pictures, careful not to miss anything while also being wary of using too much energy. In the days that had passed since she had first sprinted back from the library, Zelda had almost been able to feel how her focus and intent with the task had shifted, slowly morphing from wanting to be careful and to know what was going on, to little more than a desperate wish that there would be someone out there like her.

Pressing the teddy bear against her chest, Zelda swiped to the next picture. Though it was blurry, her hurry to catch even the briefest glimpse of her observer having drawn long lines as she swung the phone, it was still easy to make out the lines of the hallway, the carpet on the floor a deep crimson colour that had looked too much like blood to allow her to even consider entering the flat that was hidden behind the blur of a door taking up the right side of the photo.

Readjusting the teddy bear, Zelda enlarged the picture, bringing herself closer to where she had tried to focus on how the corridor had made a sudden turn to the right. Her hands had shook, she could recall that the moment she looked at the ugly painting that did not do anything to lessen the feeling of being trapped within the block of flats, at once both fearing and hoping that she would be able to see who was following her around. Granted, she had turned around the corner to find that she was alone in the unlit hall, but she still made sure to look for any sign of a shadow in the picture.

“What do you think?” turning to look down at the teddy bear, Zelda gestured towards the photograph. “Could there have been someone there with me? Do you think that they might have been too scared that something would happen to let their presence be known?”

The silence felt loud in the empty room.

Trying her best to keep the sigh from colouring her tone of voice but already hearing how she failed, Zelda nodded. “No, I thought so as well. If they still haven’t reached out to establish contact, then I doubt they will. It is all because we don’t know what has happened, you know. If we were just able to say for sure what had been the cause of the illness, if we knew what is safe and what is not, then I am sure that they would not be afraid to show themselves. You know—” letting her legs dangle over the edge of the couch, Zelda shoved the Slate aside, “I have actually thought about how I can find out more about what has happened. I… well, I haven’t really figured out anything just yet, but I am sure that, before long, I will have thought of something!” her voice rose on the last word. Zelda wasn’t sure if it had always done that, if she was still speaking with the same voice as she had done before, or if she was slowly forgetting even that. It would not have surprised her if that was the case.

Looking down at the teddy bear, Zelda opened her mouth to continue, but rather than being clear, the sound of her voice seemed strangely dissonant, constantly shifting in pitch and tone, breaking halfway through a word as she tried to gather her thoughts enough to form a coherent sentence. “I considered… going to the TV-studio of Hyrule News, to see if they had been about to prepare a story on what was happening, you know. But I—after considering it again, it did not seem like such a good idea anymore.”

She fell silent. As much as she wanted to share her doubts with someone, telling an inanimate object about her reservations about whether or not she should go there, voicing her doubts about whether anyone would even have got the chance to consider the news value of the disease that was slowly causing them to dehydrate, fearing both that it would be the case and that she would have to step over corpses to reach their work and that she would arrive to an empty studio, making her efforts be in vain, was not nearly enough to take care of the growing feeling of restlessness that grew more and more intense inside her chest with every passing day.

There was nothing left for her to do other than to hope that an opportunity to confront the other person would present itself soon, and so, that was what Zelda did, clutching the teddy bear tightly as she fell asleep.

+++

She woke up to find the teddy bear on the floor and her last bit of hope having evaporated during the night.

In spite of how the calendar on the wall informed her of how she still had yet to leave summer behind for another couple of weeks, the room felt like ice, enveloping her in a kind of coldness that went right through her, reaching every last cell of her body until it could not be kept out by any amount of blankets. Putting on her jacket and curling up on the couch was nowhere close to being enough to combat the cold; even after trying her best to regain a sense of warmth by walking around the office for a couple of minutes, Zelda could still hear her teeth clatter as she gave in to the weight on her shoulders and fell back down onto the couch.

What did it even matter? There was no one to depend on her, no one she could let down by being unable to do anything other than stare out into nothingness. There were no classes to miss, no teachers to ask where she had been. No father who would reprimand her for wasting both of their time. She had never thought that she would entertain the idea of it, but as she lay there, trying her best to pull the blanket just a bit tighter around her, Zelda found herself missing the expectations to follow in his footsteps and be more active in politics. At least if she had done that, she would have been responsible for other people, would have known that there was at least one other person out there who was looking to her, thinking that she would be able to take care of their problems. As it was now, however, there was no one who could demand anything from her, nor would there ever be again.

So even though she knew that she should have forced herself to rise from the couch and try to warm up her aching muscles, Zelda remained where she was, looking out into the empty room without seeing anything for what felt like hours before she finally found herself returning to the blessed state of nothingness that being asleep had turned into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, we leave Zelda to reality where, while she might be doing relatively well physically, mentally, she is not doing great.


	3. Chapter 3

The world around her had come to a halt the moment she had fled from her home, but her body, however, had not. That was the truth that forced her to move from the spot on the couch that had been her home for the past three days when she woke up that Thursday to find herself faced with bloodstains and a throbbing pain in her abdomen.

It felt wrong to have to move, to have to walk away from the couch to try to rinse off the blood with water from the bottles in the refrigerator, to have to improvise with the toilet paper she had at least had the foresight to grab from the supermarket the last time she had been able to find enough energy to go there to try to create some kind of sanitary towel. It felt wrong that her body had not realised that it was not needed anymore, that it had not been able to guess that wasting energy and blood, two resources she had carefully tried to plan around, was the last thing she would need now.

Deep down, Zelda was able to recognise that it had been her own fault, that for her to be able to ignore that this was bound to happen despite having had a calendar next to her and the ability to count forwards a month was something she could only blame herself for. Still, it was not enough to allow her to push away the feeling of having been betrayed, a feeling that only grew as she spent the rest of the day on the ground, clutching and scratching at her stomach as the cramps made it difficult to imagine a world beyond the next week, much less one where she would not have to plan around being unable to do much else than try not to cry over something as mundane as physical pain for a week. Before, the idea of being able to survive on her own had seemed absurd, like something a child would pretend after they had convinced their parent to let them sleep in a tent in the backyard, only to run inside when it became dark outside—now, it felt next to impossible.

The only answer she could see as she lay there was to somehow find a way to soothe the pain. But that meant medicine, and medicine meant the pharmacy. As much as she struggled to focus on anything but the feeling of the cramps, Zelda was still able to recognise the fact that a pharmacy was the last place she wanted to go with how it had surely been the last hope of plenty of desperate people in the few hours the disease had lasted. No, as much as she hated lying there, trying her best to suppress the sobs despite knowing that there was no one around to hear them, Zelda would do it a thousand times before she would even begin considering going to the pharmacy and have to face all those who did the same in her search for painkillers.

She had once read, the exact details of where having been lost the moment everything lost its meaning, that drowning victims would often end up pulling their rescuers down with them, clinging onto the first person to reach them without regards for the danger it put them in. Perhaps it was for the better that she was alone. Lying on the floor, Zelda could easily see how she would have led any would-be saviour to their demise along with herself. It was better this way, better with her feeling the floor through the carpet with the knowledge that no one would come to help her up, try to comfort her, or even just share the crushing loneliness with her. It was better for the world to leave her there, to let her be all alone.

And so, she stayed exactly where she was.

+++

That plan lasted for a little over two days before it became clear that she would be forced out back into the empty city again.

In the end, it was not the empty refrigerator nor the dwindling supply of water that became the last push to get back up from the floor. It should have been, and if there had still been other people around, Zelda might have bothered to lie about that really being the case to, if nothing else, make it seem like she had any idea about what she was doing, like she was not merely moving through every day with no other goal than to try to keep herself alive. But the truth was that as she headed down the stairs, holding onto the banister so tightly that her knuckles turned white, the only thing she was thinking about was that she needed something—sanitary towels, more toilet paper, she really did not mind at that point—to keep the blood from getting another chance to stain anything. Maybe she should have feared the smell of sweat that still brought back the sensation of running, carrying tray after tray of water, perhaps that should have been what reduced her to a mess of tears and uneven breathing, but that had not been the case. It had been the blood, and so, Zelda pulled the sleeves of her jacket down to cover her hands as she began to run through the streets, at once torn between wanting to move slowly to not make everything even worse and the need to once again be able to isolate herself within the office where she was at least able to pretend that it was all a transient issue that would resolve itself with time.

The city was quiet. In that way, nothing had changed since the last time she had set foot outside the office, but even then, Zelda still found herself wondering whether she would ever grow used to it. It seemed unlikely, the idea of her one day being able to look down at the street from her window and see the cars that had been left exactly where they had been when the drivers had lost consciousness and the windows that remained dark even in the evening without having to fight the instinct of having to sit down to let herself be consumed by it all seeming like little more than a dream.

She walked between the buildings, the steps ringing in her ears as she passed from the shadows into the light before walking back into yet another shadow cast by the block of flats, the tingling sensation of being watched slowly growing inside her. For once, Zelda did not bother to turn around to look over her shoulder. Maybe it was only the effect of having to keep her eyes carefully trained on the asphalt in front of her to keep herself from betraying her decision not to let it all overwhelm her by looking into any of the cars whose noisy tick-over let her know that she might find one of the inhabitants of the buildings around her inside, but as she continued to walk in the direction of Hyrule Market, Zelda knew that she would not have been able to bear looking back only to find an empty street.

The sight of the supermarket rising up in front of her, the dull, unlit lamp posts next to the entrance already shielding a few weeds that had not been there the last time she had gone to gather supplies, seemed almost like a welcome retreat from everything else in a way that not even the struggle to climb over the shopping trolley without exacerbating the cramps could bring an end to, the dusty air of the supermarket feeling like a familiar comfort after having had to walk through the city.

But she was there for a reason, so, only stopping for a moment to make sure that she had not accidentally disrupted the trolley, Zelda headed deeper into the supermarket.

It did not take long for the light coming through the doors to be filtered out by both the dust as well as the distance to the outside world, but that was no longer a shock to Zelda as she continued walking along the shelves, letting her hand run over the boxes of food that was still lined up in straight, immaculate rows, making it seem like it was only a matter of time before the doors would open fully to allow countless of stressed parents and students who did not want to waste any time in there to rush through the aisles in search of the objects on their shopping lists. Now, however, she was the only one in there, the only one who would stand in front of the cards that had been put on display near the writing utensils, the wishes for the receiver to ‘get well’ almost seeming like they were meant as an insult with their large, colourful letters on pastel backgrounds. She was the only one who could ever be bothered by taking one of the cards to throw it on the floor, using the tip of her boots to kick it underneath the shelf. It did not make her feel better, and as she turned around the corner to be greeted with the loud packaging of sanitary towels, Zelda knew that the heavy feeling in her stomach could not be blamed solely on cramps.

In the past, she might have bothered to stop to look at the information, compared different brands before making a decision, but with the lack of light and the feeling of her heart beating madly against her ribcage blocking out any thought other than instinctive need to leave the supermarket at once, Zelda grabbed the first package she saw, having already halfway turned around to head back outside the same way she had got in, when she heard it.

Footsteps.

Unlike everything else she had heard, unlike animals and all the different things that had been left on the edges of tables, the sound of vases breaking upon making impact with the ground having been able to pierce the silence with the same power as a cannon the first times Zelda had knocked into things while walking through the city, there was no mistaking it for what it was, no fraction of a second where she was partial to blaming it on a coincidence, to write it off as her mind playing tricks on her. There was someone there, and from how the sound of shoes hitting the floor was growing louder, they were walking towards where she was standing.

Zelda made the decision in a heartbeat, already stepping backwards by the time she had brought the pads up to her heart like it would be enough to protect her from what might happen. It was impossible to say whether the weeks of loneliness had truly sharpened her senses of if she was merely imagining things, but as she crept away from the source of the noise, careful to keep her back against the wall to minimise any risk of tripping over anything the other person might have left to act as a warning system, she could have sworn that that was the case.

The footfalls continued, the sound of soles against the cheap, linoleum flooring following along, growing closer and closer as a poorly thought-out plan took form in her mid, Zelda slowly making her way towards the wine section.

She had never thought that the sight of the dark bottles and the names she sometimes heard her father throw around whenever they were invited to some function would be able to fill her with relief, but as she reached out towards the nearest crate, the bottles having been left to collect dust on top of it, and closed her fist around one of the bottlenecks, that was nevertheless the feeling that bloomed in her chest, combining with the adrenaline that flowed through her veins and made her hands shake as she struck the bottle against the side of the wooden box.

The sound of glass shattering echoed around her like she had just been standing in the centre of a stroke of lightning, little shards of glass flying from where the bottle had broken in half, some of them landing on her hands, making the wine that ran along her arms seem almost like blood as she raised the weapon in front of her, brandishing the jagged edge of the glass bottle. She felt the electricity in her blood as she stepped towards where the sound of footsteps had now become replaced with a silence that told her everything she needed to know—they knew that she was there. They knew that she was there and were sure to have become aware of the fact that she would not hesitate to defend herself.

From behind a shelf full of baby food, Zelda caught a glimpse of the other person, the sight of the tall figure seemingly looking away from her hiding place, clutching something in front of them, possibly metal if the glint at its edge was any indication, being more than enough to make her heartrate speed up, reaching a quick staccato as she drew on every little energy reserve she had left to leave the relative safety her hiding place behind the shelf provided her with, holding her weapon up in front of her, ready to strike.

“Get back!” the words had barely left her mouth before several things happened, everything feeling like it lasted a hundred years and less than a heartbeat.

The man in front of her turned around, Zelda seeing how several emotions flickered across his face, shock, surprise, joy, and confusion all appearing and passing in a fraction of a second, before her attention was drawn from him and towards the glint of the axe in his hands. From the way his gaze followed hers, Zelda knew better than to hope for him not to realise that he outweighed her both when it came to their weapons and most likely in pure strength as well, but by then, it was too late, momentum and fear keeping her from breaking away from the trajectory she had drawn the moment she had first left her hiding place behind. Gritting her teeth, Zelda tried her best not to think about the axe, focusing solely on the bewildered look in the man’s eyes and what would await her the moment he realised what she was doing.

Then, rather than attacking or bringing up the axe to deflect her charge in what would undoubtedly have been a pathetically easy move, Zelda saw how he looked at her, his eyes moving from the wine bottle towards her face as he stepped to the side.

The world began spinning again, Zelda seeing how she missed the man by a hand’s breath, the fabric of his sweater brushing against her shoulder as she stumbled forwards, all of the force she had put into her attack making pain shoot up through her shoulder as she hit the floor.

She felt it all as through a pillow, all thoughts immediately rushing to what she would find as she fumbled to regain her grip on the wine bottle and turn around. But as much as she tried to reach for the bottle, desperately trying to find her weapon as the wine dripped from her arms and onto the floor below her, the combination of sweat, adrenaline, and panic removing all hope of being able to spot it, she continued to search blindly for the only thing she had to defend herself with, only to grip at air.

Somewhere to her right, she heard the shuffle of footsteps, and, the panic pulling at her more than anything else, Zelda decided that fighting unarmed was better than staying there.

With an exertion that felt like more than she had ever been able to muster up the energy for, she planted her hands on the floor and pushed against it, making herself roll to the side, already using every little bit of momentum she had to force herself up from the floor in a combination of what could barely be described as a jump and a shove, finding herself not quite standing, but at least no longer lying directly on the floor, the wine seeping into the fabric of her trousers as she tried to balance herself.

“Don’t—” Zelda began, her voice rising through the word until it felt like it was the only thing that existed, until even that was cut short by shock.

Rather than looking up at a raised axe and a person who, like her, had been alone for too long to be able to interact with anyone else again, she found herself face to face with worried eyes and a slight frown, all of it framed by fiery red hair. From somewhere far away from the front of her mind, somewhere where she was still able to pay attention to anything other than the axe he still held, Zelda realised that it meant that he had crouched down slightly, having bent his knees to make it so that she did not have to crane her neck to look up at him. Against the sharp edge of the axe, it was an unimportant detail, but it was nevertheless the one Zelda paid attention to and the one that kept her from flinching as the man shifted, proffering his hand.

“Are you all right?” he said it like it was something normal, making it sound like she had simply tripped after someone had dropped a bottle of wine rather than having been seconds away from attacking the person who had turned around to greet her with an axe.

A heartbeat passed with Zelda unable to think of anything but the way he kept his hand right there in front of her, maintaining almost half a metre of distance between them. Opening her mouth, she tried to figure out what to say, which answer would be the safest option, but found that she could not determine the answer. Instead, she closed her mouth again, already feeling how her eyes were betraying her by moving from the man’s face and the way the worried lines between his eyebrows grew deeper towards the axe he was still holding, the weight of the blade making it tilt slightly to the side, the metal leaning against the floor and the handle touching the side of his leg as he knelt down in front of her.

She could see the exact moment he learnt why she was not answering, how he saw that she was no longer looking directly at him, followed her line of sight, and realised that it led him to the cold, grey colour of the blade of the axe, from how his eyes widened. If she had not known better, if she had not been able to feel how the adrenaline had come to replace every last drop of blood inside her, she might have said that he looked even more horrified than she had felt as he glanced back over at her, opening his mouth for a second like he wanted to say something, but remaining silent at the last moment to instead turn his attention towards the axe once again. He reached out towards the handle, but even though she could practically hear every last bit of survival instinct she could possibly have left scream at her to fight, flee, or do anything at all, Zelda remained frozen as she watched the events in front of her unfold.

The next moment, the axe clattered against the floor a couple of metres away, the handle producing a loud clang as it hit a shelf full of cereal, one of the colourful boxes tipping over to hit the floor, countless bits of sugary breakfast pouring out of the bottom of the cardboard box. Looking at the commotion, it took a moment for Zelda to realise what had just happened. In truth, she doubted that she had even fully understood it as she turned her head to face the man in front of her again, and yet, that was exactly what she did.

“I am so sorry—”

“What—”

They spoke at once, and despite the situation and the dull pain that radiated from where her shoulder had hit the floor, the adrenaline no longer doing much to mask it, it felt oddly fitting as the man let out a low chuckle before shaking his head and looking her in the eye as he repeated himself. “I am so sorry for scaring you like that. I had no idea that there would be anyone here—I really wasn’t about to harm you.”

“I…” for the first time in weeks, Zelda could hear her voice. It should have been comforting, to be able to speak while knowing that there was somebody to understand, but the words felt almost clumsy in her mouth, making her hear how her cadence shifted halfway through the sentence as she continued, “I am sorry as well—for the bottle and everything.” from the way the man had already looked away from her to instead look at a point directly behind her, Zelda was willing to bet that he already knew what she was referring to, but it still felt necessary to mention.

For a moment the silence between them felt almost has heavy as it had been back when she had been alone. And perhaps it was even a little more stifling, the fear that she might be seeing things that were not there, that her desperation to be able to talk with another person again had manifested itself in the person in front of her and the mess she had created as a response to the fear of meeting someone after weeks of being alone, washing in over her as she sat there.

But then the man brought an end to it yet again. Shaking his head, he stuck out his hand once again, and this time, Zelda only hesitated for a second before accepting the offer. His hand felt real and warm as he pulled her to her feet, either not noticing or caring about how the wine ran down his arm, still smiling at her as they stood there, before breaking through the quiet of the supermarket once more. “Don’t apologise for that. I am sure that I would have done the same thing if I had been the one to turn around the corner to find someone standing with an axe.” shooting a guilty look in the direction of where the axe was lying next to a little pile of cereal, the man shook his head. “I just… I did not even dare to hope that there might be someone else out there who had survived, so for there to even be someone who could feel scared—it was not something I had considered.”

“I—” the words caught in her throat, Zelda at once wanting to pour out her heart to him and tell about how much time she had spent hoping for someone to appear, for someone to come and prove that she was not entirely alone after all, and recognising the instinct to retreat back into her shell and keep the loneliness from creating yet another weakness for herself. Then the full extent and consequences of his words dawned on her, her blood turning to ice in her veins as she looked up at him, hoping to find even the tiniest trace of hyperbole in his expression, only for the conclusion to make her voice shake to such a degree that she would be surprised if he understood her as she added, “you—you are alone as well?”

The smile faltered, providing her with all the answers she could ever have needed long before he nodded. “Yes, I am. And I take it that you are also alone in this city, are you not?”

“Yes,” Zelda echoed, only noticing that he had held onto her hand for the entirety of their conversation as he looked down, surprise apparent in his eyes as he let go of it, Zelda lacking both the strength and focus to keep it from dangling at her side like she had lost all control of her body, “I am.”

The silence was deafening as he looked down at her, Zelda seeing how he searched for something to say, opening his mouth only to close it countless of times while she remained silent and still. It was not possible for her to decide exactly how much time had passed by the time something caused him to break the cycle, but Zelda did know the moment it happened, the loud gasp and the way he looked down at her like he was halfway expecting for her to faint any moment making it clear that his attention had been drawn to something other than the fact that there was nothing either of them could have said to make the situation any better.

“Your arm!” reaching out towards her, it seemed almost like the man was about to grab onto her hand again, but the moment before he would have made contact, Zelda saw how the doubt crept into his expression as he pulled back and away from her, instead resorting to pointing towards her. “You are bleeding!”

He could have been right. Truth to be told, Zelda would not have been surprised if she had looked down to find that he was correct and that she had missed how a piece of broken glass from the wine bottle had cut into her arm during her attempt at creating a somewhat effective weapon. But even through the haze of adrenaline and disbelief that rose up in response to the idea that she might be standing in front of another living person, she saw how the liquid running down her arm was neither viscous nor warm enough to be blood.

Looking back up at him, Zelda was met with an expression of pure worry as she shook her head. “No,” she said, “it’s just wine. From breaking the bottle, you know—I am fine, I promise.”

For a second, he looked like he was about to disagree with her and insist on searching for a first-aid box, but then he tore his eyes away from her to instead take in the little pool of red liquid on the ground, the way the wine had left behind a blotch on his sleeve when he had helped her up. With the sound of her heart beating feeling more like thunder in her ears, Zelda saw how he slowly allowed her promise that she was all right to quell the worry. As much as she wanted to be glad that he would not have to worry about the possibility of what seemed to be the only other person he had met since the illness had swept through their worlds, there was still a little part of her that was disappointed, that wanted to ask him if he would really have bothered to try to help her if she had wounded herself in her attempts at finding a weapon to use against him. But she silenced that little voice, instead trying her best to mirror his shaky smile and the way he shook his head, pushing a lock of hair away from his face as he did so.

“Oh,” he said, the word sounding more like a shaky breath than anything else, “I cannot explain how relieved I am to hear that. I don’t think I would have been able to handle… you know.”

And she did. Being alone was a pain unlike anything she had ever thought it possible of being back when she had taken refuge in the school library during breaks to be able to carve out a couple of moments where she did not have to face other people’s expectations in her day. But as difficult as waking up day after day to the knowledge that she would spend the rest of her life that way, alone and without anyone to talk to or share her life with, had been, to meet someone else and know that she was not alone after all, only for all of that to be ripped away by circumstances that were within their control was not something she wanted to even imagine. It felt too much like tempting fate, to look at the man in front of her and admit to herself that, stranger or not, he was at least a sign that she was not completely alone and still had the presence of other people to cling to for hope.

In the end, her response was little more than a whisper. “I know. I know exactly what you mean. I—I would not have been able to… to imagine what I—” her voice broke, but from the way a faint smile returned to his face, Zelda knew that he had understood her intent.

Zelda was almost happy for the easy escape from having to face a situation where he might want to keep on talking about the issue that stood between them, loud and glaringly obvious, that the wine drying on her arms provided her with, how all it took for her to bring an end to some of all the things that were left unsaid and floating between them was nodding towards her arms.

He reacted within moments, already moving to grab a rucksack by the shelves next to him that she assumed was his by the time he turned around to look back at her. “We should probably find something to help clean that up. I don’t think that there is much to do to save your clothes, but it can’t be nice to have that on you, or at least I find it a bit too warm, so why don’t we go find some water—”

She could both recognise and understand the innate need to ramble, to keep talking, when faced with a situation that seemed too much like a mountain towering up in front of her, so, rather than interrupting him to agree and bring him into a situation where either of them might have to think of anything substantial to say, Zelda followed along a couple of steps behind him without a word.

He paused for a moment by the axe, his comment about how happy he had been to see that the supermarket had been open already growing fainter as he shot her an apologetic look before picking up the weapon again. Zelda did not miss how he kept it in front of him, keeping her from being able to fully see it by placing himself between her and the weapon. As she walked there, following along behind a person who seemed almost like he had forgot about the fact that they had only met each other because everyone around them had died, talking about how lucky he had been to run into her as he made a sharp turn around the section of canned food, it was difficult to remember just why she had been scared enough to feel the need to grab the wine bottle in the first place, what had appeared to pose a greater danger to her than the tiny shards of broken glass she tried to brush off her sleeves without having her new companion notice it.

In front of her, the man stopped, Zelda following suit. It took a moment for her to realise that he was not merely waiting for her to catch up with him, the way he raised his hand to scratch his chin and how he looked both ways down the wide aisle the tiny path between two shelves full of fizzy drinks opened up to cluing her in to that fact as he turned around to send a glance in her direction.

“The water is this way.” trying her best to pretend that she did not look at the axe as she did so, Zelda passed him, hearing how the sound of footsteps did not resume until a few seconds later, the man maintaining a couple of metres of distance between them as she showed him the way to the bottled water. After having been alone for so long, it should not have felt so comforting to know that there was still air between them, but as Zelda thought of the axe and the way she now at least had a reason for the feeling of being watched, she could not deny that it was exactly what it was as they walked in silence the rest of the way to the water.

The first time she had been there to get water, she had tried to pretend that she had a plan of attack, that there was rhyme and reason to which bottles she took and which she left behind there at the store, trying to trick herself into believing that she had a plan, was rationing and able to plan for a future she had stopped believing in. Now, standing in front of the shelves where the bottles of water had been left after their neighbouring bottle had been picked, Zelda could see how it belied any attempt at deluding herself.

Still, if the man noticed any of it, he hid it well, simply walking over to pick up one of the one litre bottles.

“So…” he motioned towards her and then at the bottle cap, “should I just pour it into your arm?”

There was honest uncertainness in his voice, that much was clear. Zelda supposed that she would also have felt unsure herself if she had been the one to almost be attacked by the first person she met, so she tried her best to keep her voice from shaking as she nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Just wait a moment.” working as quickly as her shaking hands allowed her to, she dug through the rows of bottles, finally reaching the spot she had banished the bottle she had finished in a single breath the first time she had found herself forced to head out to find water to. Back then, although well aware of it not being the case, it had seemed almost shameful that she had not been able to at least pause between gulps, ending up having to run outside to throw up the water again, but if nothing else, at least now there was a way for it to be of use to her, so, placing the bottle in front of her, Zelda looked back up at the man. “I was just thinking that it might be better if we could at least try to prevent all the water from getting onto the floor.”

“Oh! Yes, of course. We could also go outside if you would prefer that.”

With how he looked between her and the bottle in his hands, it could not have been clearer what the man hoped she would say, so Zelda shook her head and held out her arm, the wine already dripping from both the sleeve and her hand. “No, it’s fine. Mostly, I just really want to get rid of the wine.”

The man nodded, and, without another word, he tilted the bottle.

It was a slow process. While she had by no means been optimistic enough to think that she would be able to recover her jacket, it still took Zelda by surprise just how little the wine seemed intent on working with them. For as much as the man continued to pour water onto her arm with little, controlled movements, it did not appear to do much, Zelda having to stifle a sigh by the time they reached the bottom of the bottle.

“Uh.” casting a glance at her, the man nodded towards the shelf next to him. “I think that it will just take a bit more water.”

He had already halfway reached out for yet another bottle when Zelda spoke up.

“Wait.” seeing how he froze, she hurried to add on to the sentence. “No, no, I think that it is a good idea, it is just—what if you pour water onto the stain and then I try to scrub it clean? I think that it would be able to achieve far more than merely using water would.”

“Sure.” a little shrug that was not quite able to hide the tense line of his shoulders. “If you want to try that.”

They continued that way, Zelda scrubbing against the insistent stain on her sleeve, the wine that clung to her skin having had to give up after only a couple of seconds, and the stranger pouring water onto it, changing to a new bottle of water without a word as they worked.

She had been alone for weeks. That was what Zelda tried to remind herself of as she caught herself thinking of ways she could bring an end to the heavy silence between them. She had been used to the thought of being completely alone in the world for weeks before meeting him. Compared to that, the fact that she found her thoughts constantly circling back to what she could say to bring an end to the heavy silence between them seemed almost laughable. And yet, Zelda looked up from their work, struggling to figure out what she might have said if their meeting had occurred in the past world.

It was a question that did not hold any answers. The truth was that had it not been for everything that had taken place since the first time the gravity of the situation had dawned on her, Zelda knew that they would not have met. There was no topic that held a promise of a simple conversation she would be able to turn towards. But even then, she had to at least make an attempt at reaching out to the first person she had seen in weeks, so, doing everything in her power to make her tone light and conversational, Zelda nodded towards the man. “Forgive me, but I don’t think I remembered to ask for your name.”

Looking away from her arm for a moment, the man sent her cautious smile. “You don’t have to apologise for that—after all, I never thought to ask for yours either. But, to answer the question, my name is Ganondorf Dragmire. And what about you, if I may ask?”

“Zelda Bosphoramus.”

“Bosphoramus?” the man—Ganondorf—frowned, now looking away from the empty bottle in his hand entirely. “I feel like I have heard that before. Do you happen to have any family in Gerudo Town?”

It was not a comment meant to bring back the memory of Urbosa turning around to give her one last hug before having to hurry to catch the train in time, Zelda knew that. Even if Ganondorf somehow knew Urbosa, there was absolutely nothing to connect her to her based on their last names. But she could have told herself that for the rest of her life, and it would not have done anything to change the fact that she went still, knowing that she had clenched her jaw but not being able to relax, as she shook her head. “No, I do not, not any family I know about at least.”

She had tried her best to keep her voice pointedly neutral, to not let the whirlpool of emotions seep into her tone of voice, but as Ganondorf put down the bottle, his hand hovering above hers for a moment, the question of whether or not he should try to take it being clear as he looked from her and down at the ground, it was apparent that he had noticed the change in her behaviour as he opened his mouth twice before getting a word out. “Oh. I am sorry, it is just that—your name, I feel like I have heard it before somewhere. I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s all right.” Zelda interrupted him, the sound of her breathing echoing in her ears as she tried to calm down, fought to bring her heartrate down to a normal level that did not feel like it was the by-product of her heart trying to escape from its confines. “It’s just that I knew someone… you know.”

Ganondorf nodded without a word. There wasn’t anything for him to comment on, not when every name either of them could think of was going to be connected to the thinnest thread of hope that perhaps they were grieving for no reason, that maybe there was even the tiniest chance that they might have been among one of the other people who had survived where thousands had not. Looking down at where the jacket was still stained red with wine, Zelda tried to blink the blur in front of her eyes away, barely managing to restrain herself from reaching up to wipe away the tears. There was no chance that Ganondorf had not already noticed her reaction and the tears, but at least that way, she might be able to keep up the façade of being just a little bit less broken than what was really the case.

By the time Ganondorf reached out to grab another bottle, it could hardly have been clearer that he too was trying his best to maintain the last bit of pretence that they would be all right, his tone just a little too light, a little too casual, to not reveal everything beneath as he began to pour water over the sleeve of her jacket once again. “Well, Zelda, I take it that you have been here ever since… _it_ happened, correct?”

“Yeah.” Zelda nodded, and although she had intended to keep it at that, to not let herself begin to believe in the possibility of it all being real, she could almost hear how the words continued to fall from her tongue, making it feel like she was no longer in control of what she was saying. “I—after it had happened, I didn’t know what to do, so I went into the city, just to try to gather my thoughts and try to process the full extent of what… what had happened to the world around me. And, well, I guess I didn’t really know where to go, so I just went to the town hall. Now, I stay in one of the offices there.”

From the way Ganondorf raised a brow in a silent question, she knew that he had caught onto what she had left unsaid. Carefully averting her eyes to avoid meeting the question directly, Zelda went silent. They might very well be the only ones left, but that did not mean that she had to tell him about walking into her father’s office and try to make peace with the fact that no one would come to reprimand her for making a mess or for disturbing the careful order he had established in there, not when the rest of the world had lost all meaning. He did not have to know about any of that.

“The town hall, you say.” the comment was just that fraction of a second late that marked it as yet another attempt at talking about nothing in particular for no other reason other than to not let the quiet creep back into the air between them. “So you have been staying here ever since then?” without waiting for her answer, Ganondorf nodded towards the rucksack next to them, the way the fabric had been pushed towards the sides and the signs of wear and tear leaving a clear message about how it had been meant to transport books to class and not to bring along when travelling through a city filled to the brim with death. “I should have realised that there was someone here, you know. I just thought that I had been exceptionally lucky to find a supermarket where I would not have to figure out an alternative way to get inside, but of course it was because someone had already been there to take care of it.”

The shopping trolley, Zelda realised, he was talking about the trolley and the fact that, even after everything else had lost its meaning, the voice in the back of her mind still protested the idea of outright having to break into the supermarket. For as much as she wanted to remain silent and not give the world around her another weakness to exploit, Zelda could not keep back a slight chuckle. “Actually, that was already there when I got here. I—” looking down at her arm, Zelda could still see where the pieces of broken glass reflected what little light was able to find its way that far into the supermarket, “I don’t think I would have been able to enter, had that not been the case. I know it is silly and that nothing really matters now, but I… it just would not have felt right.”

“No, I get it. I tried it as well, you know, to stand in front of the supermarket back home and try to gather up the courage to actually do it.” with a smile that was completely devoid of humour, Ganondorf shook his head. “It’s weird, isn’t it? My stomach was rumbling so loudly that it was the only thing I could hear and I could _see_ the rows of canned food a few metres in front of me, but when it came down to it, I couldn’t get myself to actually break the glass door in front of me. I don’t even know why—I mean, it is not like me trying to leave everything the way I found it is going to bring back everyone—”

“But it just feels wrong to accept that they are gone and act that way,” Zelda finished for him, finally finding it in her to look back up at him.

It felt like she saw him for the first time, like she was only then truly seeing the person in front of her. Despite the dim lighting, as she sat there, Zelda was sure that she would have been able to recognise him anywhere, the sight of red hair framing features that had settled into an expression of relief being one she doubted she would forget.

“Yeah,” Ganondorf said, “yes, that, exactly. It just feels too much like I have agreed that this is the way the world is now if I actually begin to base my decisions on the assumption that it is so. I guess that is just how it is now—that I am just going to be making more and more absurd decisions.” his laugh was deep and one of the most sincere sounds Zelda had heard in weeks as he nodded towards the axe. “You know, for as much as I want to pretend that I grabbed that thing because I was trying to find a way to defend myself from the possibility of being attacked by animals, the truth is that I was influenced more by my sister’s love for Re-Dead films than any rational fear about what might happen to me now that everything I have ever known has crumbled and turned to dust around me.”

A sister. The word spread through her veins, and despite the jacket and the warmth of adrenaline, the world might very well have become ice around her with how Zelda had to clench every last muscle to keep herself from shaking. It should not have meant anything, merely another nameless person she knew had died, but as she looked at Ganondorf and saw the way he blinked away a tear, the word suddenly meant everything to her.

“I am sorry—” Zelda began, but Ganondorf waved the apology aside.

“It’s… well, it is not fine, but it is the world now. I miss her more than anything, but I can’t—I can’t let than grief overwhelm me, you know? If she had still been here, I know that she would not have wanted for me to lie down and never move again because of her. I doubt that any of them would.”

Zelda might have nodded, but deep down, she could not ignore the little hint of doubt that that would have been her father’s reaction as well. If Urbosa had been there, there was no doubt in her mind that she would have tried her very best to comfort her, would have hugged her as she told her over and over again that none of what had happened was her fault and that she would never, not even for a single second, let Zelda believe otherwise. But her father… even as she closed her eyes and tried to see him, tried to envision the way he looked up from over his glasses, the little twitch near his mouth revealing the disappointment he did not even have to voice to make clear, Zelda was not so sure that he would have shared that opinion.

“They would.” her voice rang hollow, but at least Zelda could hope that Ganondorf did not notice the obvious attempt at moving the conversation away from what hurt the most as she continued. “I take it that you are from Gerudo City then? Since you asked about any relatives there, I mean.”

He knew. The way he looked at her, something she did not know how to read flickering across his face before he was able to once again put on the mask of it all being completely normal, made that much clear in a way that not even the airy edge to his voice was able to hide. “Yes. Gerudo City, indeed.”

“But now you are here?”

“I am.”

She waited for another moment, but as the sound of her own heartbeat marked first a full minute of silence and then two, Zelda knew that he was not going to offer any further explanation. It should not have felt like a betrayal. Even if she had not made sure to guard her secrets like they were the only things that kept her alive, she would not have had any right to demand to know more about what had brought him there. Zelda knew that, and still, she could not keep her mind from returning to the question of just what had made him make the decision to leave his home behind to travel to Hyrule Castle Town. The atlas was still lying on the desk where she had left it upon first returning from her journey to the library, but Zelda did not need it to know how it was not some two-day journey he had made to get there. Three hundred kilometres. Three hundred kilometres, all for the two of them to meet and for her to be seconds away from attacking the first person she had seen in weeks.

“Uh,” as she rose from the floor, the fabric of her jacket and blouse clinging to her skin, the colour of it still bearing the sign of how she had broken a bottle in half, Zelda was at once brought back to the reason she had been there in the first place, “I was actually just about to—”

Before she got the chance to do any more than that, Ganondorf moved, having halfway reached out for her before stopping to let his arm fall back to rest against his side. “Wait! Just, wait, please? I don’t—”

Stranger or not, as Zelda looked over at him, she found herself halfway wishing that he would have stopped her outright. At least that way, she would have had solid proof that he was real. A figment of her own imagination would not have been able to reach out and make contact.

She could not tell if her attempt at covering up the doubts about whether the person in front of her could really be more than the result of having spent far too much time on her own worked, not as she struggled to form even a simple sentence. “I am not leaving.”

Ganondorf nodded, sounding honestly surprised by her answer as he spoke. “Thank you. I—listen I know that we don’t know each other and that we would never have met, had it not been for everything, but, please, don’t leave just yet. I get that you must have plans as well about what to do, but I—”

If she were to try to recall what she had been thinking in that exact moment later on, Zelda knew that she would not have been able to replicate the train of thought that led to her interrupting his increasingly meaningless ramble. All she would have been able to tell was that she did not dare to pause, not even to catch her breath, knowing all too well that she would not have the courage to continue if she had done so. “I don’t. I don’t have any plans, I mean. To tell you the truth, I don’t even have a plan for how I am going to survive the next week.” and before she had even realised what had happened, Zelda heard herself tell him everything, mentioning both the empty office, the fact that she was almost astonished by the fact that she had yet to actually inflict serious damage on her own body with how she could not bring herself to think her ideas through, the plan to create a garden to ensure her food supply that ended up dying before she had made as much as a single attempt to carry it out. She told him everything, and even though part of her wanted to take it all back and pretend that it was just a horrible sense of humour coupled with having been alone for weeks that made her talk about the carpet she had folded over to at least show that she was there, she kept on talking even as Ganondorf looked more and more shocked with every word.

Zelda had expected for silence to fill the air around them as she finished, trying her best to shrug it all off, but before she even got the chance to try to figure out how she would handle the immediate fallout of her confession, Ganondorf had already pulled the rucksack in front of him, digging through its contents as he spoke. “Look, I know that we don’t know each other and that it might be… well, not easier per se, but at least simpler to pretend that we have never met each other, but, please, Zelda, will you come with me?”

The seconds passed, Zelda almost hearing how her brain struggled to catch up with what was happening, dissecting his words as the meaning echoed through her mind, senseless and so incredibly alluring that it took everything tough in her to keep herself from holding onto him until he promised not to leave her. She had to remain strong, if not for her own sake, then to at least not be the last human to succumb to the repercussions of the disease when the person in front of her would inevitably turn out to be the product of loneliness and her own despair.

Ganondorf must have interpreted the look on her face as shock, for Zelda could almost see how he tried to take back his words as he continued. “I have lived in one of the hotels towards the centre of the city—Hyrule Hotel, I think—for the last couple of days. It is nice there, empty and everything—I think that no one wanted to stay there when they began feeling sick, or at least most of the rooms are completely fine. There will be plenty of room for us to not have to see each other ever again if that is what you want, I just… it would be nice to at least have a way to be sure that you are all right.”

“Okay.” had it not been for the relief that spread across Ganondorf’s face and the feeling of being underwater lifting a bit, Zelda would have doubted that she had said the word out loud. But with how Ganondorf could not keep back the smile, it was apparent that she had, and so, she forced herself to continue, only pausing for a moment to clear her throat, her efforts not doing anything to help lessen the sharp dissonance she could hear cut through her voice. “I… to be honest, I don’t want to leave you either. Not after, well, not after finally seeing someone who is still alive. Just…” looking away from Ganondorf and the joy in his eyes to instead nod towards the back of the supermarket, Zelda let her voice drop in volume, “I have to grab something as well as get my things from the office, so what do you say about this plan: we will meet again in front of the hotel as soon as I have done that?”

He could see past what she was saying, that much was clear as his smile faltered, the crack in the façade lasting for only a second before he was smiling at her again. But even that was enough for Zelda to know that he had realised that she wanted to keep her home to herself, that the fact that she had not asked him to go with her to grab her things despite that being the most logical way to act, allowing them to move faster and minimising the risk of losing each other again, was not a coincidence. She did not know how to feel about the way he made sure to cover up his immediate response to instead nod at her with a smile that was just a little too bright to be completely sincere, nor did she try to find the answer to the riddle. Sometimes, refusing to think about the questions that hurt was easier.

“Of course,” Ganondorf said, almost succeeding in making it sound like it really was what he had expected to hear, that she would push away the first person she had talked to in weeks, “yeah, I will be waiting for you there. Also,” pulling a piece of cloth out of the bag, his voice grew a bit warmer, “I thought that you could use this since your blouse must a bit… I don’t want to say ruined, but, at this point, I doubt that any amount of water will be enough to wash out the wine.”

It was a shirt. Perhaps it was a sign that she was truly losing the last bit of sanity she had tried to guard during those last few weeks, but it took several seconds for Zelda to make that observation, to force herself to recognise the piece of clothing he was offering her as a shirt, and then another second of tense silence to find the words and the energy to reach out to grab it.

“Thank you,” Zelda mumbled, keeping her gaze fixed on the red and green colours of the plaid in her hand.

“You are welcome. I know that it isn’t really much, and I am sorry about your jacket, but I didn’t think to grab any spare jacket before I left, so—”

“It’s fine.” the words were harsher than she had intended for them to be, and Zelda could already hear how her attempt at remedying that fact was collapsing under the weight of the last three weeks as she added. “Just… we should probably get going, right? I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like having to be outside when it becomes dark.”

For once, there was a small glimpse of what was behind the façade as Ganondorf let out a sarcastic laugh. “No, no, I get that. Re-Deads or not, I absolutely hated the nights where I had to sleep out in the open.”

It was an invitation for her to ask about how he had spent the three last weeks, what had driven him to leave the very last bit of his old life behind to head to an entirely different country. Zelda knew that. After how he had let her ramble about the office, the library, and everything in between, there was no doubt in her mind that she should have returned the gesture and waited for him to continue. It was the right thing to do, after all.

Perhaps that was why she forced herself to stand up, holding the shirt close and not meeting his gaze as she nodded. “I can imagine that, so I will do my best to hurry.”

The sight of how Ganondorf almost seemed to shrink as she turned on her heel to leave without another word burnt an impression of itself onto Zelda’s eyelids. In another universe, it might have been enough to make her sit back down again and try to repair the cracks, try to put on the same façade of the two of them being all right that Ganondorf seemed intent on hiding behind. But the truth was that she was not like him. He might try his best to make it easy for both of them, but as Zelda all but sprinted out of the supermarket, having only paused for a moment to grab another pack of pads, she knew that she was not strong enough to risk growing closer to another person again only to have them turn out to be a manifestation of her own loneliness. So she ran without looking back to make sure that Ganondorf was really heading in the direction of the hotel, that she would not find herself standing there, only to learn that he had got lost. It was easier that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, Zelda finally found another person, saving her from a fate of being the only person left alive in the world.
> 
> Speaking of Zelda, have you seen the new trailer for Age of Calamity? It looks so cool! I really can't wait to see what the game will be like :D


	4. Chapter 4

Zelda was not sure what made her decide to keep her promise and leave the office again. It had been tempting to simply attribute everything that had happened to her own mind playing tricks on her, to consider the option of staying there, of putting everything away and forget about Ganondorf and everything he represented. And yet, here she was, clutching the teddy bear close to her chest as if that would be enough to shield her, should she arrive to find that her worst fears had been correct and that the last hour really had only taken place within her own mind.

Turning around the corner to where the hotel was located, it felt like the sound of her heart beating madly against her sternum should have been audible from kilometres away, Zelda already searching for the sight of an empty hotel, having halfway convinced herself that she would be able to return home rather than lie down to cry on the asphalt when she would have to face the fact that Ganondorf did not exist when she saw him.

He was standing right in front of the entrance to Hyrule Hotel, his position and the way he was backlit by the sinking sun making it clear that he had tried his best to make himself as noticeable as possible, already waving at her by the time Zelda let doubts and fears be to instead sprint towards him.

The teddy bear hit the ground, but that was the last thing on her mind as she continued moving, having already thrown her arms around him as she felt him stumble, making her hurry to take a step back, an apology already prepared on her tongue as she looked up at him. Zelda could almost feel the words curl up and die in her throat as he smiled down at her, not giving her even the tiniest chance to apologise before returning the hug, pulling her so close that, for a moment, it was enough to silence the ever-present fear that he would disappear the moment she let herself relax and believe that he might truly be there with her.

“I’m glad that you came.” though his tone of voice was relaxed, the whisper was still enough to let her know that he had been aware of how she had spent minutes pacing around the office, trying to convince herself not to go and that it would be easier to let go of the hope of finding another person if she did not allow herself to become attached.

“So am I.” shoving the doubt away, Zelda wrapped her arms around him as well, for once able to neither let the relief of being there overwhelm her nor let the fear force her to keep her distance as she mumbled her reply.

They could have stood there for hours, and the hug would still have ended far too soon, Ganondorf sending her a smile as he stepped back and away from her, Zelda noting the way his eyes widened as he looked down at the teddy bear on the ground. “Is that yours?”

The question was superfluous with how they were the only ones left within the city, but Zelda was still grateful for the seconds it gave her to try to compose herself, carefully reaching up to tug a stray strand of hair behind her ear, using the gesture to shield her face as she nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

She had not expected for him to comment on the fact that she had brought a teddy bear long. The fact that he had asked her to come back to the hotel with him was enough to prove that once a person had accepted that they were completely alone, nothing mattered about the first person they would meet other than them still being alive. But even then, the way he simply walked over to pick it up, holding it out for her to take without a word was still enough to make Zelda pause for a moment before accepting the teddy bear.

With an air of it all being completely normal, Ganondorf motioned towards the entrance to the hotel. “Do you want to go first, or should I?”

“I—” she wanted to ask him to go first, to stay back and not risk setting foot in a room where a corpse might be hiding around every corner, but the sound of him promising that he had made sure that there would at least not be any dead bodies lying out in the open echoed in her mind as she tried to force the sentence over her lips, making Zelda change her mind at the last moment, “I will go first.”

Without giving herself a chance to second-guess the decision, she closed the distance between herself and the glass doors that only served to let the luxurious interior of the hotel be apparent to everyone standing outside, placed her hand on the cold metal of the door handle and pushed. The door swung open, letting Zelda walk into the lobby.

The hotel had seemed impressive from the street, but even then, even as she looked around and spotted the dust in the air and the cobwebs near the ceiling, the only thing Zelda could focus on was how the extravagant façade had not been able to fully do the interior justice. A chandelier reflected the light of the setting sun, the metal of it carrying out the work of the lights, albeit bathing the rest of the hall in broken reflections rather than a bright glow of electrical lights, letting her know just how expensive paying for a room would have been back before the world had ended, chairs with large, crimson pillows decorating the entrance hall, organised in seating arrangements that she doubted had ever been used, and the wall behind the desk covered in keys with the number of the specific room they would grant access to engraved on a metal plate next to them.

“Yeah, I know.” the sound of Ganondorf’s voice called her back to reality, Zelda spinning around just in time to see him rub the back of his head, a combination of embarrassment and relief clear in his eyes. “It is… really something. But at least it means that there is plenty of space, so even if there should be anyone here, as long as we stick to the rooms I have already inspected, I doubt that we will have to see them.”

It made sense. Head into the fanciest hotel in the city to both bring down the number of people who were likely to be there and the risk of accidentally stumbling across them whenever they would turn around a corner. But as much as she wanted to let herself relax, Zelda could hear the reluctant edge to her words as she broke through the silence. “Do you know this place?”

“If you are asking if I have ever set foot in here before I arrived four days ago, then no. I just picked this place because it looked like there would be a restaurant with some food that might actually still be edible and because it seemed like the safest place to stay when I did not want to enter any private homes.” stepping towards the front desk, Ganondorf nodded towards a doorway on his right-hand side, Zelda following his line of sight, sending a glance down a long hallway with doors lining both sides. “It’s that way, just in case you were wondering. And I have already cleared those rooms—there’s no one there.”

“And you?”

“Oh, I am staying on the fourth floor. I figured that it was the floor where there was the least risk of accidentally stumbling across some poor soul who had been here all alone when everything happened.” as Ganondorf pointed towards the keys hanging behind him, Zelda saw how the fourth row was the only row where there was only a single key missing. “It also means that there are plenty of empty rooms for you to stay in—if you want to, I mean.”

The invitation was clear, Zelda almost seeing how he was about to hold out his hand for her to take. Perhaps it was simply due to the fact that she was already standing there, the orange light reflected by the chandelier above her head speaking of a sinking sun, but, for once, Zelda did not hesitate before answering. “I do.”

“You do?” Ganondorf’s tone grew higher on the last sound, and even as he regained control over his voice a moment later, the wide smile on his face told her everything she needed to know about what he thought about her decision to stay. “Oh! All right, wait a moment, then I will get you a key. Do you mind staying on the fourth floor? It is the best place to be, but if you would rather have you own floor, then I will just have to go to the rooms without a key here to make sure that no one is there.” already jumping over the desk, Ganondorf continued talking as he grabbed one of the keys near the empty spot in the fourth row, turning around to throw it towards her, the key sailing through the air as it shone in the light of the sun.

Zelda caught the key the last moment before it would have hit the floor. The metal was cold, nearly freezing. Shoving the key into the front pocket of the shirt she had borrowed from Ganondorf, Zelda did her best to match his enthusiasm with a smile of her own. “Please don’t. The fourth floor is perfect for me.”

The process of getting all of her belongings up to her room was a simple one, even if Ganondorf insisted on repeating over and over again that the lift was no longer working, his tone of voice making it sound almost like he believed that he was personally responsible for the fact that they had to walk up the stairs to the fourth floor. Had it not been for how she only had to recall the minutes of running through a city to reach a person she was halfway convinced did not exist and would disappear in a plume of smoke the moment she allowed herself to believe otherwise to understand why he seemed so intent on apologising for every last thing that could possibly have been a source of irritation or reason for her to leave, Zelda might have told him to stop. As it was, however, she instead opted for trying to assure him that it was fine every time he stopped to catch his breath, and before long, he had pushed open the door to the fourth floor itself, letting her step out into a long corridor, before slowly closing the door behind them.

The hallway itself was bathed in darkness. That was the first thing Zelda was able to pay attention to as the sound of air being pushed away and a soft thud echoed around her, the door blocking out the light coming from the windows of the stairway, leaving her to try to force her eyes to adapt to the darkness as quickly as possible.

Behind her, Ganondorf touched her shoulder before passing by, his bright red hair making him slightly easier to spot against what Zelda decided had to be the beige wallpaper on the walls around her.

“Don’t worry, the rooms are much better than this,” he said, Zelda barely able to make out the outline of him as he took another step away from her, “I picked the rooms that faced towards the street, so there should still be enough light there for you to be able to take in your surroundings.”

Feeling her cheeks grow warmer, Zelda could not deny that, if nothing else, she was at least grateful for how the darkness made sure to hide how she had to keep herself from tripping over a slight indent in the floor as she tried to follow along after Ganondorf.

The sound of a chuckle and the way she could only just see Ganondorf reach out towards her, offering her an arm to hold onto made it clear that not even the lack of light in the hallway had been enough to completely hide her stumble. Mumbling something about being tired that she was not even certain made sense to herself, Zelda accepted the offer of help, letting Ganondorf guide her down the hallway.

By the time they stopped again, she had almost grown used to the darkness, making her blink and turn her head to the side as the sound of a key being twisted and metal sliding out of the way to allow a small stripe of light to appear in front of her as Ganondorf opened the door ajar filled the hallway. At least this time, Zelda did a better job of hiding it, following Ganondorf into the room without a word.

It was exactly as extravagant as the lobby had been. That was the only way she had of describing the sight that met her eyes by the time she was able to look around without feeling like she was staring directly up at the sun.

A painting on the wall above the bed, chairs facing the large window overlooking the streets below, an armoire that had been pushed up against the wall to her right, all of it coming together to make it all feel even more unreal.

But Ganondorf was there. That was the one fact Zelda refused to let go of, as much as the room in front of her did not seem like one she should be in. He was there, and the fact that he did not hesitate before stepping into the room to throw open a door across from them, revealing a bathroom with tiles on the walls and stone flooring, was what she used to ground herself and quieten the doubts to instead allow her to follow him into the bathroom, rolling her shoulders to try to ease the tension as he looked away to gesture towards the sink, mumbling something about water pressure she could not quite hear but still caught the gist of. They might be within one of the most expensive hotels in Hyrule, but the thing that had brought them there was the death of everyone they had ever known. Being aware of that, Zelda had to fight to keep down the bile that rose in her throat as she recalled the awe that had washed over her at the sight of the chandelier several floors below them. People had died and she had been busy admiring the interior design of the place they would only stay in because it lowered the risk of having to face any of the people who had died. Maybe there had been a reservation for the exact room they were now standing in, a person somewhere out in the world who had looked at pictures of it and decided that they wanted to sleep in the bed she would now sleep in, walk across the cold stones below her feet, look out the window to take in the sight of the city. For that was what Ganondorf’s presence meant, wasn’t it? That, even in the very best of scenarios, the disease had not been something local that was contained to only Hyrule Castle Town or Hyrule itself, having at least affected Gerudo Town and possibly the entire country as well.

It was not until he snapped his fingers directly in front of her face that Zelda realised how Ganondorf was talking to her.

“Zelda?” his tone of voice was soft, too soft, making her feel like she was made of glass, something fragile that could break under even the slightest amount of pressure, as he looked down at her. “Are you all right?”

Swallowing back her thoughts about how she was standing in a dead person’s room, Zelda nodded. “Yeah,” she mumbled, repeating it once again, unsure of whom she was trying to convince, “yeah, I am all right. And the room is… lovely—thank you so much for letting me stay here with you.”

If he noticed how her voice shook or the fact that she looked down at the stones between them, Ganondorf was at least kind enough to not comment on it, instead continuing on with the same cheerful tone of voice he had used since they had first entered the hotel. “Don’t thank me. To tell you the truth, you are doing me a favour even more than I am helping you out here. I—being alone for those weeks since the disease swept across first my campus and then the entire town was the worst thing I have ever experienced. For you to stay here, even if we would have to part ways in an hour is really the kindest thing you could have done.”

“I…” Zelda tried to finish the sentence, to force out the words ‘then you know that you have also helped me far more than I can ever put into words’ to let him know that no matter what, even though she had introduced herself by being centimetres away from stabbing him with a flask and refusing to believe that he existed, she was grateful for the mere fact that he had not vanished into thin air while she had gone to collect her possessions, not even to mention having arranged for her to be able to remain close to him, even if all it had taken was for him to grab a key from a hook on the wall, but the lump in her throat kept her silent.

“I know.” the word was mumbled, but with the lack of traffic on the streets outside and the sound of people walking around and enjoying their lives, Zelda was able to make out every syllable as Ganondorf bowed his head. “I know what you are trying to say. I just felt like it would not be right to not tell you that. To tell you the truth, I had almost given up on the idea of there being anyone out there who was still alive—I mean, we were, what, about two thousand five hundred people living on campus? For me to be the only one to survive seemed like a laughable idea at first, but then, no matter how many times I tried to look for any sign of other people still being alive, I could not find anyone.”

There was an opening there, Zelda could hear that, an offer to change the topic of their conversation. She grabbed it with both hands, tilting her head to the side as she finally looked back up at him. “Campus? You were attending university then?”

“Correct.” as Ganondorf smiled at her, the distant look in his eyes making it clear that, though he might be standing in front of her, mentally he had gone back to university, to a simpler time where the biggest cause of concern was grades and what day an assignment was due. “I was studying engineering at Naboris University back before… before everything.”

“Naboris University?” Zelda said, trying her best to remember if she had seen any mention of the name among what had, at the time, felt like an endless stack of brochures and pamphlets her father would present her with, the colourful pictures of students laughing and promises of how fun and engaging the lessons were having been accompanied by handwritten notes about which members of their family had attended which university. If she recalled the correct brochure from the pile of pictures, the one showing a campus with buildings that looked like they had been designed specifically to please her father’s appreciation for grand gestures, it might have been some great-uncle. “What was that like?”

There was honest, unadulterated joy in Ganondorf’s voice as he shook his head. “It was the greatest experience of my life! I loved math and physics and all that long before I went there, but there was really something about learning how to use it to make constructions safer that just felt more right than having to solve an endless list of maths assignments that did not really do anything to make anyone’s life better or worse. Why?” giving her a little shove, his elbow hitting just below her shoulder, Ganondorf grinned down at her. “Were you thinking about becoming an engineer as well?”

Despite everything, Zelda could not keep back a laugh as she tried to picture what her father would have said if she had suggested the idea. “No,” she said, the laugh still bubbling up from her stomach, “no, not at all. I think my father would have disowned me if I had even tried to suggest it.”

It took a moment too long for her to realise that Ganondorf was not laughing, instead looking at her with an expression that looked like it belonged to a point halfway between concern and pity “What do you mean? Did he not want for you to travel too far away for your education?”

Already, Zelda could feel the cracks spread across the layer of pretence they had used to cover up the reality around them, long, thin lines slowly but surely revealing everything that was underneath, the fact that she was disrespecting not only the dead, but her father’s memory as well as she stood there, talking about the fact that he had dared to have expectations for her like it was a crime and not a part of life that everyone had to be able to handle without letting it turn into bitterness at the mere idea of following in the footsteps of her father the way he wanted her to do.

“Zelda—” Ganondorf began, the concern clear in his voice as she interrupted him, hurrying to keep him from being able to reach the end of his sentence.

“It’s just, family, you know? He wanted me to become a politician like himself. It has kind of been a tradition in my family that we all go into politics, so he wanted me to do the same thing I guess, that is all.” it felt almost like the words hung in the air between them, Zelda already aware of the fact that she had failed to convince Ganondorf the moment she risked a glance in his direction, only to see that he had furrowed his brows, looking down at her with an expression that told her everything she needed to know. The only reason he did not outright disagree with her was that he too was trying his best to maintain the act of everything being all right, that the hotel and the empty suite was all a game they would soon be able to abandon to instead go back to their old lives that did not contain any of this, neither the guilt over resenting the dead nor the small bright spots they were able to find, that much was clear.

But she refused to speak, to add on to the sentence, and at last, after what felt like an eternity, Ganondorf let out a sigh, only barely managing to mask the sound by moving past her to leave the bathroom. He stopped in the doorway, clearly considering whether to leave or not, before turning around, not quite looking at her as he tossed his head in the direction of the door to the stairway across the dark hallway. “I… uh, if there was one thing I learnt to really appreciate while studying, it is food, so… if you want to, I was thinking that we could head down to find something to eat. It is not exactly gourmet food and I had to get rid of most of the things in their kitchen before I could even stand being in the room, but they do still have a couple of tins of dried beans and pasta.”

Mostly, Zelda wanted to be left alone in the room, to be able to not have to talk with anyone or have to hide the guilt of having just spoken badly of her father despite the fact that she had been the one to abandon him in the end when she had left the house without sparing a second thought for what would happen to him with her gone, how no one would come to move his body from the bed, that he would not be buried but rather left exactly where he had died. But Ganondorf looked at her, a look of disappointment already creeping into his expression as he waited for her answer, and suddenly, the correct answer to his suggestion was not as easily definable. But he was there; he was alive, and he was waiting for her, having told her about his own life and seemed honestly surprised that she was not going to try to pursue her own dreams, and, at once, that became the decisive factor in her attempts at weighing both options, making Zelda all but run to follow him out of the room.

+++

Ganondorf had not lied when he had warned her that the food that had been able to survive the weeks without refrigeration was not exactly enough for them to create a meal that was able to come even close to the extravagance of the dining hall, both of them stopping in the doorway, the little plate of over boiled pasta in Zelda’s hands that was all they had to show for their fight with the camping stove Ganondorf had sworn he knew how to use sticking out like a sore thumb against the heavy curtains that kept out the orange light of the sunset outside. Had she been alone, there was no doubt in Zelda’s mind that she would have turned around and abandoned all plans of eating there. But she was not alone, and where she found herself frozen up at the sight of the dining hall, Ganondorf was quick to cross the floor, pulling the curtains above the table directly in front of them aside with one quick motion to let in the light, the orange glow making the white tablecloth look a little less pristine as Zelda finally forced herself to follow him.

Was it wrong to, for once, be able to forget about the outside world, to instead join Ganondorf in insulting their own horrible attempt at making dinner? Maybe it was, Zelda reasoned as they agreed to let the dishes remain dishes to instead walk back up to the fourth floor, the sound of barks echoing through the streets making her realise another reason for Ganondorf to have prioritised living high above the street above being able to reach his room without having to walk up the stairs, but that was nevertheless how she felt as she moved through the hallway, trusting herself to walk a bit faster now that she had already done it once already.

She had just reached the door to her room, having already halfway reached out to twist the handle when Ganondorf stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

“Wait,” he said, the darkness around them making it impossible for her to read his expression. Though with how he did not wait to move past her, opening up the door to his own room, almost letting the door close behind him, letting only a thin stripe of golden light escape into the hallway, Zelda doubted that she would have been able to tell what he was thinking even if she could see his face.

So she waited, the voice insisting that she had to move and run away before her new friend would be ripped away from her being little more than a whisper as she revelled in the feeling of satiation after weeks of having barely been able to convince herself to eat enough to offset walking around for an entire day.

She could not have waited for more than half a minute when the door was pushed open again, Ganondorf stopping in the doorway, blocking the door from closing with his shoulder as he fumbled with something in his hands, looking down at it rather than over at her as he spoke. “I was just thinking that, since you had that teddy bear, you know, you might want this.” and with that, he held out the object in his hand, everything about his stance letting her know that he was waiting for her to take it.

“I…” as her eyes grew used to the sparse light in the hallway, Zelda moved closer towards the offered gift, her mind connecting the dots between the soft fabric that made up the surface of it, the way the greyish colour of it would surely be light blue if brought out into the sun and reached the conclusion of sand seal, specifically a sand seal cuddly toy, something that left her with even more questions than before. In the end, however, Zelda settled on bowing her head as she took the toy, bringing it close to her before looking up at Ganondorf again, knowing that the moments that had passed before she had responded were sure to have asked all the questions she could ever have thought of long before she opened her mouth to do the same. “Is it yours?”

“I brought it with me to university,” Ganondorf said with a shrug, the way his breathing grew louder letting her know that he too recognised the response as an attempt at dodging the question, “and it was one of the few things I bothered to bring with me when I left.”

But if he wanted to guard the full story about the sand seal, Zelda would be the last person on the planet to try to force him to tell the truth, opting for smiling despite knowing that the chances of him being able to make out the gesture in the darkness were slim rather than trying to chase an answer. “Thank you.”

“It was nothing.” it wasn’t nothing, that much was clear from the slight tremble in his voice at the end of the sentence., Ganondorf’s attempt at covering it up with a cough only serving to further draw her attention to it as he continued. “Well… in that case, we should probably try to get some sleep. I will see you tomorrow.”

Zelda had halfway spun around to head into her own room, the idea of sleeping where another person had meant to spend their day no longer seeming as horrid as it had done only an hour before, back when the feeling of the Sheikah Slate in the front pocket of the borrowed shirt made her heart speed up ever so slightly, when the memory of blurry pictures and the sense of being watched once again washing in over her, replacing any other fear she might otherwise have had.

Completing the circle, already seeing how Ganondorf was about to comment on her odd behaviour, Zelda did not bother to try to search for the perfect way to ask about her fears that would not make her seem overly paranoid. It did not matter, not when she was talking to the person who had thought to bring an axe to be able to defend himself from wild animals, who had had the foresight to pick a room far away from physical threats as well as that of seeing a corpse, and especially not when she could still recall the way she had never been able to catch even a fleeting glimpse of her observer no matter how quickly she would spin around to catch them looking at her. So, rather than trying to figure out a way to wrap it up in pretty words, Zelda went straight to the point.

“Ganondorf, back before we met, did you know that I was here? That there was someone else still alive in the city, I mean?”

The answer became clear the moment Ganondorf frowned, the confusion soon giving way to worry as he seemed to realise her reason for asking. “No,” he said, sounding almost apologetic that he was not able to provide an explanation that did not make her look back over her shoulder every time she heard even the faintest rustle in the leaves behind her, “no, I swear that I had no idea that you would be here before we met in the supermarket. Why? Did you...did you _see_ someone?” from the way his voice dropped, it was all too clear that Ganondorf already knew that, no matter what answer she would give to the question, it would not be one of hope, of her having seen signs of there possibly being other people out there like them, who were also just waiting and hoping for someone to show up to let them know that the entire world had not died around them.

If she had been able to trust herself to lie convincingly, Zelda might have considered doing that, leaving the consequences of the fact that it would be a matter of minutes before she would lack answers in the face of the questions that Ganondorf would no doubt have for her and the idea that she might have spotted someone for another time. But already as she looked at him and saw how he glanced from her to a point just above her, Zelda knew that he had reached the same conclusion as she had thought of in the panic of being aware that she was being watched without being able to tell who or what it was or where they were hiding.

“You… if there is someone out there, someone who would want to reach out for us to help and be helped, they would have done so already,” Ganondorf mumbled. While it might have been meant for himself more than for her, Zelda could only nod in response to the succinct way of putting it.

Still, as the silence descended onto the hallway from above, the little cuddly toy in her hand suddenly feeling like the only thing anchoring her to the present, Zelda had to at least answer. The second attempt at forcing out a sound was the one that worked, Zelda hearing how unsure she sounded as she looked over at Ganondorf. “Yes, I… that was what I thought as well—but it might also have been nothing, just me being worried about the sound of a dog moving around in one of the alleys behind me. Just because I thought that I felt someone watch me after weeks of having been on my own—it doesn’t necessarily have to mean that there was actually someone out there watching me. It could just be a sign of loneliness, right?” the question slipped out along with her attempt at dispelling their worries, instantly rendering it all meaningless.

Still, Ganondorf nodded. “Maybe.” then, finally looking down at her again, he gestured towards the door behind her. “No matter what, I doubt that we will figure out anything right now when we are both tired. Why don’t we agree to let this wait for tomorrow?”

It was the worst way to handle the issue. No matter what would turn out to be the explanation for the blurry pictures and the feeling of having every last cell in her body beg her to flee from an unknown enemy, not knowing would be worse than anything the universe would be able to throw at her. But her resolve to pursue the issue crumbled in on itself as Ganondorf yawned, barely able to stifle the sound behind his hand as he looked down at her.

“Yeah,” Zelda heard herself say, feeling like she was watching the world around her through a mirror, everything being just slightly out of place without letting it be enough for her to name the cause, “sure.” with her heart feeling like she had just sprinted through the city in her search for the source of the sense of being carefully monitored, Zelda waited for Ganondorf to turn around to head back into his room.

A heartbeat passed before she realised that he was doing the same, the way he crossed his arms letting her know that he too had guessed her plan.

They were alone in the world, the only ones that might possibly be left alive having watched her for days, their reasons for doing so still a secret to her. By all means, knowing that she would have to let it wait for the night to instead sleep in a place she had never set foot in before should have been enough to make her lose herself fully to the panic that formed a stone in her stomach. But as Zelda gave up and obeyed the silent order for her to go to bed, she found that, rather than having to struggle to find enough peace to let herself fall asleep, her head had barely hit the pillow by the time she felt the world slip away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter four and Zelda is finally no longer alone! Also, I am so happy that there has been more trailers and gameplay videos of Age of Calamity - I am really looking forwards to seeing what the game will be like, even if it will probably mean that most of the plans I have for this fic are going to go against canon :)


	5. Chapter 5

She woke up with the scream of a nightmare having followed her back into the waking world.

Sitting up in her bed, the memory of being gone, of having stood there, unable to anything other than to look on with the feeling of being powerless weighing her down, already fading to leave only the adrenaline in her veins and the staccato of her heart against her ribcage behind, Zelda rubbed the heel of her hands against her eyes, willing the last remnants of the nightmare to disappear. Then she opened her eyes, looking down to find that, rather than the grey of the couch in her father’s office, she was looking at red and green stripes, the shirt sticking out against the memory she had had of how she had twisted the fabric of her blouse in her hands while she had waited for someone to answer her pleas for help.

And then it all came rushing back to her, almost making her fall back into the soft mattress below as she tried to sort through and organise everything that had just happened. But only almost, for above everything else, above the relief of remembering that she was not as alone as she had feared, that there was someone with whom she could share the burden, was the fear that she might already have lost that last thing.

By the time Zelda had thrown the duvet aside, she had already swung her legs over the side of the bed, taking a shaky step onto the cold floor before she was stopped by the sight of the splash of blue against the background of white.

The sand seal. It was still there. Sitting next to where the duvet had landed on the ground to form an inelegant pile of fabric, it did not seem like it had been moved from where she had fallen asleep with it pressed against her side. As she picked up the toy, Zelda tried her best to convince herself that, with how significant it had seemed to him, the way he had looked down at it like it meant everything while refusing to divulge any more information about it, Ganondorf would not have left without it. If it was still there, then so was he.

But even that attempt at assuring herself that she had not lost the only other person still alive in the world was not enough to stop Zelda from sprinting out of the door, almost falling over as she held onto the doorframe to put herself face to face with the door to Ganondorf’s room, nor was it enough to keep her from hammering at the door with her free hand, all thoughts of the time or the possibility of him still being asleep being little more than a whisper at the back of her mind as she fought herself to count the seconds that passed.

She had barely reached ten by the time the door was being thrown open, Zelda having to stumble back to keep herself from falling to the ground as Ganondorf rushed out into the hallway, struggling to pull the sweater from yesterday over his head as he hit his shoulder against the doorframe.

“What’s wrong? Did you see anyone?”

And just like that, the world around Zelda slowed down again, allowing the fear that he might have left her to instead be replaced by embarrassment as the fact that she had just made it seem like there was something seriously wrong, having gone to pound at his door without giving the conclusion he could draw from that a second thought, dawned on her.

“Er…” she began, only to pause again. What was there even to say? ‘I am sorry that I woke you by making it seem like we might have been attacked during the night, but I just needed to make sure that you had not abandoned me’ — everything she could have said had already lost its air of seriousness, leaving only the childish truth behind, ”I… I woke up and thought that… that you might have disappeared. I am sorry—I didn’t know that you were still sleeping, if I had known—”

Ganondorf cut in before she was able to finish the sentence, the panic and fear leaving his behaviour as he straightened the sweater a bit before rubbing his hand against the spot where his shoulder had connected with the wooden doorframe. “It’s all right, nothing to apologise for. I was just worried that you had been hurt, so don’t apologise for that.”

“I—” Zelda caught herself the moment before she could have mumbled another apology. “Okay, I won’t—apologise again, I mean.”

Turning to search for something to distract her from the last bit of panic, Zelda looked behind Ganondorf and saw how the window showed the sun peeking up from behind the horizon, the buildings on the other side of the street cutting across the sky while still leaving just enough space between them to allow her to look at the sunrise.

Ganondorf must have followed her line of sight and realised what she was looking at, for the next moment, he had moved over to stand next to her, waiting for a moment before speaking. “It was probably about time for us to wake up anyway. What do you say to making another attempt at pasta for breakfast?”

+++

Zelda managed to get halfway through a plateful of pasta of only slightly less dubious quality than the previous night by the time she was no longer able to keep the question inside.

It felt almost like lava rising up inside her, warm and bubbling as she spit it out in between a bit of mush. “Are you… do you have plans to leave the city again?” she asked, careful to keep on looking down at the fork in her hand like nothing mattered other than trying to scoop up another forkful of pasta and especially not the fact that she could see the lines connecting the dot of ‘Ganondorf was gathering supplies when I met him’, ‘Ganondorf has travelled all the way from Gerudo Town to get here’, and finally the last one that felt the most damning: “he had not said that he would stay there with her, had not tried to tell her not to wake him up again” to form a conclusion to the question she had just asked.

In the silence that followed, Zelda could hear the sound of bits of the pasta clinging to the fork only to be pulled down onto the plate again by gravity. Had it not been for how her stomach already felt like it had been removed to be replaced with a stone the size of her head, it would have been sure to get rid of any bit of appetite she might have had. As it was, however, Zelda kept her gaze fixed on the meal in front of her, not as much to try to convince herself to eat more as to delay the moment where she would have to look up and face what Ganondorf’s reaction to the question would be.

Still, as Ganondorf spoke, Zelda found that she would rather have continued to listen to the sound of her fork pushing the pasta around than the way he was clearly trying to win time for himself by making a show out of placing his utensils next to the plate before speaking. “To tell you the truth, yes, I was actually planning to leave the city within the next couple of days.”

“Oh,” Zelda heard herself say, the cheerful tone in her voice sounding so fake that she could only hope that Ganondorf would know to refrain from pointing it out, “well, in that case, where were you planning on going? If that is something you can share with me, I mean.”

The answer was immediate, Ganondorf shifting in his seat across from her, Zelda seeing how he cocked his head out of the corner of her eye. “I… I was thinking about heading southeast, towards Lurelin Village.”

That was enough to make Zelda put aside the fact that he would be leaving soon for a moment, shoving all other feelings aside to instead focus on the fact that, out of all the places he could possibly have named as his destination, the one he had chosen was the little fishing village that was so close to the maritime border that she had been able to swim out to it back when she had been able to convince her father to let her go there with the rest of her class. As much as she wanted to recognise the importance the village no doubt held for Hyrule’s economy with its export of fish, no amount of racking her brain for an explanation was enough for her to make sense of it. For Lurelin Village, a village so small that she had only learnt of its existence when she had read the slip for her parents to sign to let her come along, to be where Ganondorf wanted to go was simply not something she could get to fit in with everything she knew, both about the world and about him.

“Lurelin Village,” Zelda ended up echoing, raising her brow in what she hoped would be a polite plea for him to continue rather than a patronising gesture.

“Yup,” Ganondorf said, ruling out the option of her having misheard him, “I have read that it is the city with the highest amount of boats not powered by the traditional cores, so I decided that it was the best place to go if I wanted to be lucky enough to find a way to cross the ocean. I…” he let the sentence trail off for a moment to instead shift his attention towards the plate in front of him, something about the way he sat, his shoulders hunched forwards and chin kept low, making him look almost like a mirror image of how Zelda had felt only a few moments ago as he continued, “back before, a few days before everything collapsed, my aunts had to travel to Labrynna—something about their job that I didn’t really catch when they told me on the phone. Anyway—and I know that it is stupid and probably a bad idea to pursue it—but I was just thinking that _maybe_ there is a chance that they are alive. Maybe everything in Labrynna is fine, but they have had to cut all contact with this continent because they are afraid or have assumed that we are all dead. Maybe they are sitting in some hotel lobby like this one, worried sick about whether or not we—whether or not I am all right. I know that it is probably not the case and that, given how we haven’t heard anything from anyone, at this point, it is pretty much safe to assume that, whatever it is that has happened, it has happened on a global scale, but… but I have to at least make an attempt at getting to Labrynna.”

“Oh.” that was all Zelda could say and maybe that was for the better. After all, what else could she possibly have said in response to all that? They might both have thought themselves to be the sole survivors in their cities, but with the way the corners of Ganondorf’s mouth had curled up into a smile as he talked about his aunts, Zelda suspected that that was where their similarities began and ended. She could wish as much as she wanted to that she could relate to the hope that, somewhere out there, her family was alive, and it would still not do anything to change the fact that she had known that her family was gone the moment her father had stopped responding to her attempts at getting him to answer her, to recite speeches and statistics in an attempt at forcing him to remain conscious, and that she was not nearly optimistic enough to think that the same had not happened to Urbosa as well. So, rather than trying to find some poorly fitting bromide that would have inevitably have had a hollow ring, she stayed silent.

Outside, she could hear a dog bark, the sound of it echoing through the street, bringing her decision not to think of its reason for barking that way, wild and desperate, not to give in to the temptation to picture how it would be standing in front of its family, trying to force them to wake up again, to an end. There had to be an almost unimaginable number of animals like that out there, not just in Hyrule Castle Town or Hyrule, but throughout all of the infected areas, waiting for someone to come and take care of the situation they refused to comprehend, only for no one to arrive. The dog had lost its family and so had she, but if there was even the slightest chance that Ganondorf could be right about the idea of his family still being out there, having been lucky enough to not have been present wherever the centre of the outbreak had been, perhaps she could still find something to give herself a bit of hope.

If she had been able to think the idea through, if she had been able to divide it up into smaller problems that she could then handle one after another the same way she had not begun with outright suggesting letting her go with her class to Lurelin Village, Zelda knew that she would have slowly brought up the subject by asking Ganondorf for details about his family, slowly but surely making him connect her with the word. But the idea had struck her like a bolt of lightning, and so, Zelda let the fork clatter against the side of her plate as she let go of it to instead look directly over at Ganondorf. “I want to come along.”

The disbelief was evident in Ganondorf’s eyes as he tore his attention away from his pasta to instead meet her gaze. “You want to?” it looked almost like he was honestly expecting for her to burst out laughing and admit that it was just a joke. When Zelda refused to look away, letting her expression settle into one of determination, Ganondorf sighed. “But what about everything you have here? I mean—” perhaps realising that the dining hall of a hotel she had no prior connection to did not make the strongest argument for staying there, Ganondorf interrupted himself. “Listen, I appreciate the gesture, I really do, but you have to understand that I really don’t have any kind of plan for how I will go about doing this, not even to mention the fact that neither of us know how dangerous the journey to Lurelin Village will be. I mean, by the Heroines, for all we know, without working cores to power anything, we might begin to see major disasters arise from that issue soon, not even to mention the fact that I have never been aboard a boat before and I don’t want to see you get hurt just because you felt like you had to—”

“Well, I am not offering to come along because I feel an obligation to do so, I am telling you that I want to come along because I don’t want to be left all alone when you leave!” Zelda cut in, realising too late that the reason it felt like she was growing as she spoke was that she was rising from her seat, having halfway leant in over the table. Fighting back both the warmth in her cheeks as well as the sting of tears in her eyes, she sat back down, only to hear her voice tremble as she continued. “Please, I am telling you that there is nothing left for me here. Even if you think that your plan is based on nothing more than blind hope, it is better than having to spend another day all alone here. You saw the way I acted when I first met you; do you really think that I will be able to make it here on my own?”

To her relief, the reminder made Ganondorf smile. It was small, easy for him to hide as he brought his left hand up to cover up the pull of muscles, but it was there, both in his expression and his voice as he answered while looking out of the window to his left. “You really want to come along.”

The battle had been won; Zelda could feel that as she nodded. Now, it was only a matter of not making him regret or second-guess his decision. “Yes, I do.”

“Well, all right then. I guess that you skill at improvising weapons could be useful if we were to come under attack.”

The silence that followed lasted for a few heartbeats too long before Zelda realised that he was poking fun at her, the realisation tearing a disbelieving laugh from her throat. There was something freeing about being able to laugh at it, sitting there in the dining hall of a hotel she would never have set foot in had it not been for an unknown disease killing everyone around them in a matter of hours and laughing at the way Ganondorf made it sound like it was already some amusing anecdote, a sign of her being overly worried and quick to act, refraining from mentioning the fact that, had he been a few seconds slower at moving to the side, if the jagged edges of the broken bottle had been sharper, and if she had been a bit stronger, the episode in the supermarket could have ended in disaster. But as she sat there laughing alongside him, all of that felt like a distant memory as Zelda struggled to catch her breath in between fits of laughter.

Finally, she was able to even out her breathing, the laughs turning into honest joy in her voice as she searched for the answer to the question she was about to ask in the twinkle in Ganondorf’s eyes before letting the words fill the air between them. “So I can come along then?”

“I doubt I would have been able to stop you if I had wanted to,” Ganondorf said, the mitigating laugh at the end of the sentence receiving further support as he added, “and also, I don’t want to leave you behind either. If you want to come along, I just want you to be sure that you actually know what you are getting yourself into, agreeing to cross an ocean with someone who has never even set foot on a boat before.”

“Trust me, I know.” Zelda smirked at him. “Besides, you are talking to the girl who decided that a wine bottle was an acceptable weapon when faced with someone she did not know—it is not like you will be the one to keep us back if I come along. Still,” clearing her throat, letting the humorous air to her words fade into the light of the sun that illuminated the room, Zelda leant in over the table again, “I get that you probably want to leave as soon as possible, but we have to make a plan for how we will get to Lurelin Village. I have only gone there once in my life, and I can still remember how we got lost in Faron Woods until my teachers remembered that they had brought a map.”

“Sounds reasonable. I suppose that there will be a library nearby, right?”

“Yeah,” Zelda said, swallowing back the fear and the feeling of being watched, only to ultimately end up thrown back to the moment the book on mythology had slid out of her grasp, hitting the floor with a heavy thud that tore through the silence of the library like a scream, “there is. I think that if we go there today, then we should be able to be prepared to leave by…” counting in her head, Zelda was almost able to pretend that she was not struggling to recall the image of the calendar on the wall, the amount of red lines marking each day blurring together as she tried to figure out just what day they had reached, “Tuesday. We just have to figure out a plan to get to Lurelin Village and then gather supplies.”

The rest of the morning by passed in a haze of questions about both the city as well as her memories of Lurelin Village, where the library was exactly, and if there was a better place to find food than the supermarket that thankfully clumped together to provide Zelda with some sort of distraction from the fact that she did not have to lie to say that, other than trying to help Ganondorf find his family, she had nothing to keep her from giving in to the allure of letting go of the last bit of hope.

+++

Noon passed, the sun reaching its zenith above them, sending rays of sun down onto the grand building that housed Hyrule Castle Town Library. From her spot by the window, not even the tall stack of books Zelda had pushed to the side, the placement allowing it to cast a shadow onto her face, was enough to hide the cloudless sky from her as she found herself gradually losing focus to instead look out at the city around them.

It was summer. Of course, she had known that it was summer already, the days having felt like they moved by at a snail’s pace, but there was a world of difference between looking at her calendar and wondering if she would even be able to make it to autumn or if her willingness to risk electrocution to regain her Sheikah Slate as a tool to keep track of her surroundings would catch up with her before then and looking out the window to see how the trees swayed in the breeze, a bird pushing off from a branch to cut through the air for a moment before landing on the roof of the block of flats across from her. If she just kept on looking out of the window, she could pretend that it was how it was supposed to be, that nothing was out of the ordinary, the silence in the library a fact of life rather than a sign that no one would ever go out to enjoy the sun.

“Have you found something?” placing yet another book down on top of the stack of books next to her in lieu of a greeting, making it sway dangerously under its own weight, Ganondorf pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. “Because either my Hylian is just not as good as I thought it was, or there really wasn’t a lot of people involved in the creating of the atlases I could find who had thought to take a situation like this into account.” without pausing, he reached out to grab a page from the growing pile of maps that cut off just before Lurelin Village, looking down at it for a moment before pushing it towards Zelda. “I mean, if you look at the way this was drawn, you would not think that it was actually meant as a help, right?”

“Given how it was made to teach people about geography rather than to allow the two of us to try to make our way to Lurelin Village on foot when Faron Woods is infamous for being horrible to navigate, I think you would be correct.”

But she had already lost his attention, that much was clear as Ganondorf grabbed the paper again, looked at it for a moment before pushing the stack of books next to him to the side, Zelda having to close her eyes and fight back the little pang of guilt as she heard some of them hit the floor, clearing his half of the table in the process. Then, moving carefully, his hands shaking slightly as he pushed the piece of paper all the way towards the corner of the table, Ganondorf began to arrange the maps they had torn out of the atlases after agreeing that a bad map was better than nothing, pausing for a moment before grabbing another page from the pile, once again inspecting it closely before placing it down on the table with a focused expression that did not leave any doubt about the precision he applied to the task.

She should have gone back to her own task of reading through the books on wildness survival that could hardly have made it more obvious how they were meant for children rather than people who would not be able to call for help should a situation they had not thought to prepare for arise, but as Ganondorf grabbed the third page, Zelda pushed the books aside to instead look on as a little collage slowly took form in front of him.

A map of the path they would take. That was what it was. It wasn’t a gradual realisation, but rather the result of Zelda noticing the roads lining up on the different illustrations, some of them fitting better than others and a couple of the maps Ganondorf would inspect ending up as a crumpled up piece of paper on the floor after it had become clear that the difference in scale was too great to ignore.

A couple of minutes passed before Ganondorf looked up from his work. Upon noticing her staring at the admittedly quite awkward-looking depiction of the Faron Province, Ganondorf shot her a grin. “I did not combine my engineering classes with art as an optional subject to then not put it to use. Here, I think this might work, but could you please take a look at it as well? I would rather have the person who has actually been to Faron Woods decide whether or not this will work.”

Moving from her chair, Zelda made sure to keep her distance to the table as she walked over to stand next to Ganondorf. The last thing they would need now was for her to somehow bring the images out of order. Casting a cursory glance at where a little red dot marked Lurelin Village’s location near the coast, Zelda forced herself to focus on nothing but the lines that cut through the forest where the different atlases had been used to try to create a single map. It looked correct, the few names that had been written onto both pictures lying next to each other matching up, Zelda able to somewhat locate the path she could remember them following only to find that they had made a wrong turn near the beginning, sending them into an unknown part of the woods without finding any glaring errors in the construction of the map. Furrowing her brows, Zelda stepped closer, smoothing out one of the pages to let her find the entrance to the path they had been able to agree on following to then drag her finger across the map, ending up near Lurelin Village.

“Yeah,” Zelda said, hoping that Ganondorf would not take the honest surprise in her voice as an insult, “yeah, it looks like what I remember.”

“All right, then we will just need something to keep all this work from going to waste the first time a gust of wind finds its way in here. Do you know if there’s any sticky tape somewhere here?”

It was with a not entirely negligible amount of pride in her voice that Zelda held up her hand, stopping Ganondorf just as he was about to push back the chair to go look for the adhesive tape himself. “There is no need for that. I can just take a picture.” fishing the Sheikah Slate out of her trouser pocket, Zelda held her breath as she leant in over the map, holding onto the phone so tightly that she saw how her knuckles became white as she positioned the camera to capture a picture from directly above the pieced together map before handing it over to Ganondorf.

He did not react. Despite Zelda holding her Slate out towards him, the brief moment of unadulterated pride soon giving way to the fear that she might somehow unwittingly have done something to make him upset, he only looked down at the phone in her hand with an expression that looked like something halfway between disbelief and horror.

“Ganon—”

And then, almost like a video that jumped forwards to catch up with what it had missed, Ganondorf had reached out to take the phone, bringing it close to his face as he looked at it. Still, no amounts of nodding to himself and mumbling something she could not quite hear would have been enough to make her miss the way he reached up to use the sleeve of his sweater to wipe away a tear.

This time, Zelda knew to remain silent, not to push the issue. There could have been a million explanations for crying, a million different reasons that the situation they had been brought into and left to try to handle for weeks would make them cry, but as Zelda looked down at the map, Lurelin Village sticking out against the background with its bright red dot and the world map visible from the bottom of the pile of maps next to it, Zelda able to spot the L in Labrynna from underneath the mountain of paper, there was no doubt about the reason for the little sniffle that accompanied the sound of Ganondorf hurrying to turn off the phone again to not waste energy before handing it back over to her.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice still thick with tears as he almost seemed to make a point of not looking at her, instead staring down at the table in front of them, “it looks great.”

It was impossible to know what the right thing to do in that moment was, but Zelda only hesitated for a moment before reaching out to place a hand on Ganondorf’s shoulder. Even through the fabric of his sweater, she was still able to feel how he tensed, unable to hide the fact that his shoulders were shaking.

“Hey,” Zelda mumbled, “I am sure that they are going to be all right. They will be just fine and overjoyed to see you, I promise.”

“Huh?” as he looked away from the table, still not quite meeting her gaze, but at least not outright trying his best to not look at her at all, it seemed almost like Ganondorf did not know what she was talking about, the confusion apparent in his eyes. A moment later, however, it was gone and instead replaced with a smile that could hardly have looked faker if he had tried. “Oh, yeah, I know that they will. It is just…” a sharp intake of breath that was almost enough to disturb the map he had just painstakingly stitched together and Ganondorf seemed to deflate in front of her, his shoulders sinking as he shook his head, “forget it. I was just lost in my thoughts for a moment.”

There was something he was not telling her, that much was clear and could hardly have been made more obvious if he had outright told her just that. Still, as Zelda shoved her phone back into her pocket, she only entertained the idea of asking what he had been about to tell her for a moment before going back to her own quest to figure out what they would need for their journey across the country. Ganondorf’s secrets were his own, and much like she appreciated the fact that he had not tried to get her to talk about her father or the fact that she sometimes caught herself wondering whether or not she was freer now than she had ever been before, only to feel sick at the thought, she would have to wait for him to tell her what he was thinking about as he went back to pore over the different atlases.

Still, Zelda could not keep herself from looking over at him from time to time, just as she could not deny that she noted the fact that he used his sleeve to wipe away tears three times more before she had turned a single page in her book. But he did not mention it, and so, she remained quiet as well.

+++

The shopping trolley was still there, still keeping the doors open for them by the time they reached the shopping market. With the sun hanging low on the sky, both of them having agreed that it would be best to hurry to finish breakfast to have as much time to gather supplies as possible, it had taken a while for them to get close enough to the building to be able to see it against the backdrop of a rising sun, but it was there, no doubt about it. And still, it did not take more than a short glance at it for her to note the way the trolley had been turned slightly to the left, a change so small that she might not have realised it had it not been for how she had spent weeks being constantly vigilant. But now, Zelda saw the difference, the way the trolley seemed to have been dislodged, possibly moved beneath the weight of someone having climbed across it to enter the supermarket. Reaching for her Sheikah Slate on instinct, her fingers having already made contact with the cold metal by the time she noticed, Zelda was only happy to let Ganondorf walk ahead, instead falling a couple of metres behind, keeping her attention carefully turned towards the axe in his hands rather than the trolley. It would be all right, it had to be.

They came to a halt in front of the entrance to the supermarket, both of them looking down at the trolley. From the way Ganondorf clenched his jaw, his gaze flickering from the trolley in front of them to her, his grip on the axe becoming a bit tighter, Zelda did not need to ask to know that he had noticed the difference as well.

Around them, she could hear birds chirping in the trees that surrounded the parking ground, but as Ganondorf gestured towards the shopping trolley, it all seemed to fade into the background to instead let her focus on nothing but his words as he reached out towards the handle, tugging at it. The trolley moved, the few centimetres it had been pushed forwards having become ten by the time he let go of it again to instead look towards her. “We should probably bring that along with us. I mean… we don’t know what will happen on the journey, so being able to bring more supplies than what we can carry on our own with us will probably not be a wasted effort.”

Forcing out a noncommittal sound, Zelda nodded. It made sense, and, honestly, had it not been for the instinctive fear gripping her as she looked down at the trolley, knowing full well that with how careful they had been not to let it move and create any risk that they would have to outright break into the store, they could not have been the ones to make it move, she would have suggested the same thing. And still, she could hear the sound of blood rushing through her veins, her pulse a hollow sound in her ears as Ganondorf pulled the trolley free from the doors, the whine of metal against metal amplified by the silence around them as he moved the trolley little by little, the momentum making him have to take a step back as he finally forced the trolley away from the sliding doors.

Zelda held her breath, but nothing happened. The doors were still open. At least the core that powered them did not appear to be connected to any kind of dead man’s switch. But then again, Zelda would not have blamed the architect of the supermarket’s security measures for not having predicted the situation they were in.

They stood there for a moment, both of them looking down at the trolley in front of them like it was going to tell them what to do next.

Clearing his throat, Ganondorf moved to take a step closer to the entrance, pulling the trolley along behind him before stopping again to spin around and look back over at her. “So are we just going to go back here with the supplies?” a nod in the direction of the shopping trolley let her know what exactly ‘here’ meant.

They had been planning for this. That was what Zelda had to remind herself of. They had planned to leave Hyrule Castle Town, and leaving meant finding supplies and a way to transport them. But despite the fact that she knew that there weren’t any people around to be negatively affected by what they were about to do, she could not fight the feeling that they were really planning to take away food, water, and a chance of survival from someone else. Perhaps it was simply a side-effect of being almost entirely sure that there was someone out there watching her, but even though she should have known better than to believe that there were other people alive in the city, as Zelda nodded, grateful for the fact that Ganondorf did not wait for her to say anything out loud as they headed into the store, the dust in the air making her cough into her sleeve, she kept on looking over her shoulder, halfway expecting to see someone standing behind her every time they turned around a corner.

Counting to herself to try to even out her breathing, Zelda followed along behind Ganondorf, the two of them walking in silence as they made their way towards the shelves of tinned food, little yellow labels letting them know that they had been on sale. Now, they could take them for free, Zelda grabbing the first can she saw without bothering to look at what exactly it was advertised as. It didn’t even really matter, not when everything tasted the same no matter what they did. Piling up the cans in her arms, tucking one last in under her chin, Zelda looked over towards where Ganondorf had seemingly decided to begin from the other end of the shelf, only to realise that he had still only grabbed a single can, having turned it around to look at the front, Zelda spotting a picture of what looked to be some kind of soup beneath the spot where the name of the brand had been written using just slightly too large letters, giving it an almost childish look.

“Ganondorf?” her voice sounded fragile, even to herself, the can against her throat wobbling dangerously on top of the pile as she shifted her weight to the side. “Are you feeling okay?”

He twitched, barely holding onto the can as he seemed to only then become aware of her presence again, the nod not doing nearly enough to convince her as he hurried to grab another can from the shelf, mirroring her attempt at carrying as much food as possible before answering. “Yes, I was just a bit distracted.”

The understatement and the fact that there was so much he was not telling her was obvious, but Zelda decided to let it pass by without a comment, instead waiting for Ganondorf to move past her again, the two of them making the trip back to the trolley without another word.

It was not until they had completed the third round of gathering up everything that still appeared to be edible, the trolley already halfway full despite Zelda’s attempts at stacking the cans of food to maximise the space next to the bottled water, that Ganondorf spoke to her again.

Having just seen him kneel down next to the pasta, ostensibly to compare the dates on the boxes, but clearly not taking in any of the information from the way he kept on staring at a single spot on the cardboard, his eyes not moving at all, hearing Ganondorf break through the silence was almost enough to make Zelda jump up into the air with shock. Barely managing to hold onto the bag of flour they had agreed might be able to survive the journey, Zelda could only hope that he had not noticed her nervous behaviour as she spun around to look at him.

It would appear that she was in luck, though it did not feel that way as she saw how Ganondorf kept on staring at the pasta rather than her as he spoke. “Uh, Zelda, I was just thinking, you know, the trolley… did it also seem like it had been moved slightly since the last time we were here?”

Letting the flour and the question of whether or not the bag was sturdy enough to bring along remain, Zelda walked over to crouch down next to him on the floor, all too aware of how her attempt at buying herself more time to think her answer through was still not enough to keep her voice from shaking slightly. “Yeah, I did think that it looked a bit… different.”

Thankfully, Ganondorf did not bother to ask why she had not commented on it, nor did he need to. With the way she could almost see the barrier take form between them, leaving her unable to do anything about it other than to look, Zelda heard the answer ringing in the tense silence that followed, reigning over the air around them for what felt like ages until Ganondorf nodded again. “About those people you have… well, not exactly seen, but at least sensed—do you think it could be that they have moved the trolley?”

“I don’t know,” Zelda admitted, “I mean, I don’t even know if they actually exist or if it was just something I was imagining.”

“But there could have been people nearby?”

The real question was present in the way his voice rose on the last word. Had it not been for the fact that they were sitting on the floor of an aisle in a deserted supermarket, squeezed in between shelves of pasta, Zelda might even have envied him for taking the possible presence of an unknown number of people who had not done anything to reach out to make contact as a good sign, but they were sitting there, Ganondorf refusing to look directly at her, instead tapping an uneven rhythm against the side of the box, so instead of feeling jealous that he was able to find a bit of hope in the idea, Zelda tried her best to figure out the best way of explaining her worries, speaking slowly to give herself more time as she did so.

“I think,” she began, already knowing that she was about to fail, “that there might be. I… I think that it has been happening far too often for it to have been nothing more than nerves.”

Ganondorf hummed in response, still not looking up from the box in his hand as he spoke. “Listen… I know that—that I have been acting weird ever since we got here,” the way he gestured towards the shelf next to him was enough to let her know that he was not only referring to that exact aisle, “but it is just… well, I used to eat this whenever I would go home during the holidays. I never told them, but I think that my aunts—or at least Kotake—knew that I missed eating pasta that had not been boiled to the point where it could barely qualify for that title anymore, so this was what we used to eat for dinner when I would arrive.”

“Oh,” Zelda said, “I…” she paused, the sentence trailing off as she realised that there was nothing she could say that would make the situation even slightly less awful, nothing she could do to take away the horrible feeling of jealousy and guilt that followed the thought that at least he had a reason to cry over a box of pasta while she could not think of a single thing in the supermarket that would have held the same meaning for her.

He must have been able to guess at least part of the reason for why she stayed quiet, for, wiping away the tears, Ganondorf took a deep breath and looked up at her. “You don’t have to say anything. I just felt like you deserved better than to have to wonder why I was suddenly crying over a box of pasta and some tinned food.”

It was meant to take away the guilt, but as he pushed himself off the floor, holding out a hand for her to take, pulling her up with him like he did not even have to think to stop and help her, the feeling of her stomach growing heavy only intensified as Zelda tried her best to remind herself that just because she could still see the way her father had been lying in his bed, looking almost like he was asleep, it did not mean that she had to envy Ganondorf for still being able to believe that his family was alive or for the fact that he did not seem as conflicted as her when thinking about them. There was no need for him to be sad on her behalf, not even as he looked over at her with an expression like he was waiting for her to admit that she too was affected by seeing the food around her, like she might also have a story of a parent who would prepare her favourite dish when she would return home.

For she wasn’t affected. As much as she wished that she was able to name a dish that would be associated with a feeling of returning home to her house after a long day, there was nothing for her to hold onto, nothing to strengthen the hope that, somehow, she had been wrong, that her father might still be somewhere out there. All the supermarket was to her was yet another place to feel guilty that she had survived when there were people out there who were missed dearly by the person sitting in front of her. That, and a place to find food that had yet to begin to stink, a fact that finally made her shrug, careful not to let her voice betray her emotions as she offered up a crumb of what Ganondorf was waiting for. “No, I get it. I… I had a friend who would never fail to bring fruitcake along whenever she would come visit me.”

It was a fragile pause from the tense atmosphere between them, but Zelda was more than willing to accept it for what it was as Ganondorf sent her a weak smile. “She sounds like she was pretty great.”

She was. In many ways, Zelda was sure that, had it not been for everything that had happened, she would have admitted that Urbosa had at times felt more like a parent to her than her father ever had. But they were sitting next to shelves of pasta they had to bring back to the trolley waiting outside because everyone had died, so she kept the thoughts to herself, instead settling for merely shrugging in response as she picked up another bag of flour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, they are almost ready to begin the journey towards Lurelin Village! I have to admit that I am really looking forward to writing that part of the story :)


	6. Chapter 6

They set out immediately after finishing breakfast, leaving behind a pile of dishes in the dining hall of the hotel that no one would ever come back to.

The sun was already climbing up above the trees in the distance as they pushed the trolley in front of them, Ganondorf humming under his breath as he had to steer around a car that had been left in the middle of the street, but a shiver still ran down her back as Zelda breathed in only to regret the decision as she had to close her eyes to convince herself that the only reason she reached up to block out the smell was that they had just passed by someone who had been on their way home with groceries back when the entire world had stopped spinning around them. A short glance over at Ganondorf was enough to let her know that he had been able to distract himself from noticing, the sound of him humming along to a song she did not recognise seeming even louder against the quiet around them as she held her breath while they made their way away from the car.

They had not discussed the previous day, had not brought up the fact that they had been crying in the supermarket for even a moment, not even to drop the issue the second it became clear that they were not mentally equipped to handle it. Perhaps they should have talked about it, for as the buildings around them grew smaller, the shops and parks slowly being replaced with terraced houses and playgrounds as they moved from the town centre towards the walls that separated Hyrule Castle Town itself from the numerous suburbs that surrounded it, Zelda felt the things they had left unsaid between them grow in size until it felt like she was going to drown in them if she did not at least make an attempt at bringing back the kind of conversations they had been able to share before they had planned to walk across Hyrule with little more than the hope that they would be able to find two people in an entirely different country to lead them.

It took a few tries for Zelda to get herself to produce a sound, but, at last, she was at least able to hear something other than the wind rustling in the trees around them and Ganondorf’s humming. “So…” she began, looking towards the house on her right as she spoke, “your aunts, uh, what are they like?”

With the way there was nothing else for them to focus on as they made their way through the empty street, no sound or cars they needed to pay attention to, it felt almost like Ganondorf would be able to see right through her as he shifted his full attention towards her, the silence around them rushing in to occupy the spot the sound of him humming had claimed just moments before as he sent her a long look.

Finally, just as Zelda had been about to accept that they would return to the tense silence from the previous day, he let out a little sigh and began talking. “They are… well, they can be a bit intense if you don’t know them. I think that that is something I have always admired about them. You know, just how they never gave up when there was something they wanted to do.” letting out a soft laugh that felt almost strange to Zelda after having seen him cry over a box of pasta not even a day ago, Ganondorf’s voice grew louder, no longer sounding like it was little more than a second away from becoming a whisper. “Actually, I think that they are going to like you a lot because of that.”

The comment was enough to catch her off guard, Zelda finding herself sending him a disbelieving look. “What do you mean?”

“Listen, and I mean this in the best way, but you can be a bit intense as well.” despite her attempt at controlling her expression, Zelda knew from the moment Ganondorf reached out to give her a light shove that her confusion must have showed on her face, a feeling that only grew stronger as he continued. “I know that Kotake is going to find the story about the wine bottle hilarious. I can almost hear her, you know.”

“Kotake?” Zelda asked, hoping that she was not about to overstep the boundary between them. He might be speaking to her again, but the barrier between what they could talk about without either of them pulling away to retreat into their shell and what was strictly off-limits was still only a vaguely defined line in front of her, one that Zelda could only hope that she had not reached yet.

Luckily, Ganondorf only smiled at her in response, pushing the trolley a bit harder to get it over a slight bump in the road before answering. “Yeah, Koume and Kotake. They were pretty into getting stuff monogrammed for a while. I think that they really enjoyed talking about how easy it was because they had the same initials.”

It was nowhere near fun enough to justify the way Zelda had to bring a hand up to stifle a snort, and yet, that was exactly what happened, Zelda trying her best to imagine the two standing in front of a towel with a K and a D stitched onto it. “Monogrammed things, really?”

“Yeah, it was a whole thing for about a year. You have no idea about how much my roommate teased me about having my initials on my trunk when I walked into my dorm room for the first time, acting like he had not already put up a sign with his name engraved on it on our door by the time I arrived.”

That was enough to pique her interest, Zelda finding herself almost able to let go of the fact that, most likely, every single person they were talking about had been dead for weeks already, leaving them to reminisce about people who were most likely lying where they had been when the disease had first appeared. “Your roommate really did that?”

“Trust me, having a roommate is truly an experience I think that everyone deserves to have. Just being able to walk into your room without knowing whether or not they are going to greet you by holding up picture you brought with you of your family and ask why your aunts are wearing matching t-shirts with their initials on is an experience of a lifetime. But what about you; were you about to leave for university when all this happened or were you still stuck with classes you don’t care about?” Ganondorf let the sentence trail off, instead finishing it with a low chuckle.

“I wouldn’t exactly put it like that, but, yeah, I still had another year left here.”

She had not meant to let the last words escape her and certainly not for the edge of bitterness to creep into her voice, but of course Ganondorf noticed it, raising a brow as he looked down at her. “Oh, did you have plans of travelling far away for university?”

“No, not exactly.” Zelda sighed, already knowing that, whether she liked it or not, she was not able to keep back the words that almost seemed to bubble up from her stomach, and so, rather than making an attempt at all, she found herself continuing. “Well, I mean, I really wanted to—actually, one of my mother’s old friends had even offered to let me live with her if I wanted to study at Naboris University, and I had looked into their courses and everything, but… well, my father was not exactly happy about the study programme I was thinking about choosing, so…”

“Oh.” Ganondorf went quiet, and if Zelda had looked at him rather than forcing herself to stare at the street in front of them, she was sure that she would have seen pity in his eyes, so she made sure not to let that happen. What was her father telling her not to move so far away, not to let herself lose her connection with her future voters against the fact that none of it mattered anymore now that everyone and everything they had ever known was gone? Swallowing back the emotions she refused to analyse and assign a name to, Zelda let Ganondorf be the one to break the silence between them with a nervous chuckle. “I am sorry to hear that.”

It felt like she was looking at the scene from the outside, having someone else move her body for her as she shrugged. “It is what it is. He was just worried about my future.”

Ganondorf let out a sigh Zelda was not sure how to interpret, almost sounding like he was about to say something else before changing his mind to instead pick another topic to talk about. “Well, in that case, what was it that you were thinking about studying?”

“Engineering.”

For once, the silence that followed was not awkward. Holding onto the handle of the trolley, Zelda felt how Ganondorf pulled it to a sudden halt, spinning on his foot to look over at her as he let out an excited, ‘you’re kidding me? Engineering, really?’ that did not sound anywhere near as dismissing as it would have done had it been anyone but him who had said it.

Unable to keep a smile from pulling at the muscles around her mouth, Zelda did not even bother to fight the laugh that made its way into her voice. “Yeah, I mean, I love chemistry and physics, so for me to be able to study engineering—I don’t know, but it just felt right.”

“You absolutely would have loved it! We had the best teachers, and, yeah, sometimes, the classrooms were not great, but you would have loved it anyway.”

They continued down the street that way, Ganondorf talking about everything and nothing in particular, Zelda soon learning that the scientific faculty had the best canteen back on campus but also the longest way from their building to the canteen, and although the fact that none of it mattered anymore was still right there, waiting for them below the surface of Ganondorf continuing to talk about some assignment he had been working on back before, Zelda was almost able to forget about it as the town wall came into sight, Ganondorf continuing to talk about the different teachers and teaching styles he had encountered as they had to lift up the trolley to be able to get it around a car that had been abandoned just outside the town wall.

It was not that leaving the city behind, turning around to see how the stones of the wall hid the houses from her, was the same as leaving the little pang of guilt that still clung to the idea of listening to Ganondorf tell her about how the people living on his floor had used to spend weekends competing to build the highest tower with their school supplies behind, but the fact that there was further between the houses out there, further between the cars where the key was still sitting in the ignition after the driver had slumped over in the seat was undoubtedly part of why it felt a little easier to breathe than it had done within Hyrule Castle Town itself.

When they had set out in the morning, Zelda had been sure that she would find herself wishing for when it would be dark enough for them to agree to bring an end to the day and put up the tent they had tied to the trolley. But the truth was that even as the sun above then began its descent, Zelda found that she was nowhere near as exhausted as she had been after having spent the entire day sitting still in front of a pile of books.

Perhaps the same was the case for Ganondorf as he stopped to look over at her, halfway through the process of hammering one of the pegs into the ground, letting a second pass with simply looking at her before sending her a bright smile. “Zelda, you know… I don’t think I have told you yet, but I am really happy that you came along. I know that it is selfish, but I really don’t know what I would have done if you had not been here.”

She should have told him that, really, she was the one being selfish, having tagged along on his journey to find his family after she had lost her own, that he was doing her a favour even more than she was helping him by being there. But even as she tried to find the words to let him know that, Zelda could not bring herself to say any of the thoughts out loud, so instead, she returned the smile and remained silent. Little by little, the feeling of being unwanted and unneeded followed her example.

+++

“So, about your aunts, did they really each decide to get a dog and name it the exact same thing, or are you just making things up at this point?”

With how uneven the dirt road cutting through Romani Plains was, Zelda had to be careful with where she placed her foot, having already had to shift her full weight towards the trolley to keep herself from falling after a loose stone beneath her foot had wobbled twice. But even though she had not taken her eyes off the little road immediately in front of them for the last five minutes, she could still hear the amusement in Ganondorf’s voice as he responded to the accusation by nudging her in the side with his elbow.

“What, are you saying that you don’t trust me, Zelda?” the trolley began to veer to the side as he let go of it to instead press his right hand against his heart, sighing dramatically, before he had to grip onto the handle again to keep the trolley from rolling off the road under the combined weight of their food, water, books, and tent along with the occasional added weight of Zelda struggling to remain standing. “You wound me deeply. Do I really look like a liar to you? Because I am being completely honest when I tell you that there have been so many instances of them doing the exact same thing that it is almost creepy. I mean, each of them being one half of a set of very competitive twins can only explain this much, and I feel like both of them just so happening to adopt a dog with the same name is just a bit too close to the image of twins from horror films. Don’t tell them that I told you that, by the way. I don’t think that they are going to like it, or, well,” daring to throw a glance in his direction, Zelda caught the way Ganondorf scratched his chin, “maybe they will think that it sounds cool.”

“Well, they sound very cool to me already,” Zelda offered.

Ganondorf laughed, not unkindly, as he reached out to pat her shoulder. “Listen, Zelda, they are going to take that as the most flattering compliment you could ever have given them, but if you say ‘very cool’ while they are listening, just know that you are never going to hear the end of it again. I can remember the one time I tried to explain to explain to them that I had had a ‘totally awesome’ test at school, and they still tease me about it whenever I have finished an exam. I once had to tell them twice that I was serious about being worried about the annual examination of my first year at university because they refused to say anything other than that they wished me a totally awesome test.”

“But at least they wished you good luck in their own way. I know that—” Zelda cut in, keeping herself from being able to continue and insult her father yet again by feigning a coughing fit. Making a show out of turning to cough into her sleeve, she tried her best to use the few seconds of Ganondorf not being able to see her face to regain control over her emotions, to force the sting of tears to disappear.

It did not work, that much was clear from how Ganondorf had stopped laughing, the sudden lack of the sound almost taking physical form as she went back to staring straight ahead while pushing the trolley.

When Ganondorf spoke again, Zelda had to focus to be able to catch the words even though he was walking directly next to her. “Listen, Zelda, I get that this is your own thing and that you don’t have to tell me about it, but… do you want to talk about it?”

“I…” mostly, she wanted to say no, to shut down the conversation before it would begin and turn the direction of the conversation towards a less dangerous and hurtful subject. Only, even as she tried to force out the words to let him know that he was right to think that she did not wish to discuss the issue, Zelda could already hear how it would have been a lie, making her instead let out a sigh as she continued, “it’s just… it is complicated.”

“Well, I have a lot of time to listen. I mean, it is not like any of us have anything better to do.”

The joke was forced, Zelda hearing the tension in Ganondorf’s voice, but she could still appreciate it for what it was: an attempt at lifting their spirits. And she owed him that much at least, Zelda knew that. If she wanted to continue to let it drag her back down into a hole where she wanted nothing more than to let herself curl up on the floor and stay there, at least Ganondorf would know the reason for it if she told him. Besides, as she looked out over the flat expanse of grass in front of them, the Applean Forest standing as a wall next to the road, the thick barrier of foliage keeping the light from being able to reach the ground beneath the trees, it was clear that Ganondorf was right about there not being a lot of other things to do as they slowly made their way across Hyrule Field, hoping that they were reading the map correctly and would end up at Lake Hylia rather than somewhere in the countryside.

She did not realise that she was steeling herself for the conversation until she took a deep breath, Zelda instinctively trying her best to let her muscles relax, bringing down her shoulders from where they had slowly but surely climbed up to touch her ears as she began. “All right then. Just don’t tell me that I didn’t warn you.”

“I think it would be the lie of the century to try to claim that,” Ganondorf said, the chuckle that followed lasting for little more than a second.

Searching for the right words for a moment, Zelda was grateful for the fact that the difficult terrain would keep her from being able to give in to the temptation of looking over towards Ganondorf every other second to see what his reaction would be. Tightening her grip around the handle of the trolley to keep herself from fidgeting, she began to speak. “It’s just… I never really felt like anything I did was ever quite enough for him, you know. If I got a bad grade in school, I should have got a better one; if I got top marks, then I was wasting my time with my attempts at categorising the different types of cores we used in the house when I should have been practising my pronunciation to keep me from stumbling over words while rehearsing speeches.”

“Speeches?” Ganondorf echoed at her side, clearly realising that he had just interrupted her the moment the word had left his mouth if the way he had already reached up to cover his mouth with his hand when she looked over at him was any indication.

“Yeah,” Zelda mumbled, “he wanted me to become a politician and all that, remember? Apparently the best way to do that was to start young, according to him. That, and the statistics showed that the public really liked the idea of the town’s mayor having a daughter who also cared about whether or not some university across town would get more funding than last year—before you ask, yeah that was a thing back when I was eight. There was a speech and everything—I think that I can still remember some of it.”

“Whoa… that’s a pretty…”

“A pretty bad way to raise a child?” Zelda suggested. From the way Ganondorf did not respond, neither outright confirming, but also not denying it either, she knew that the guess had been correct. “I don’t know if I would say that. Besides, I know that him being the mayor gave me a lot of opportunities that I would not have been able to pursue had it not been for his position as a politician. I guess he just wanted for me to be able to have the same things as he had. That, and to continue the family tradition.”

“Yeah, but still… I really can’t blame you for looking forwards to whenever—” Ganondorf tilted his head, shooting her a questioning look. “Urbosa? Urbosa, right? That is her name?” when Zelda nodded, he continued. “Yeah, if that was what it was like for you, then I really get why you can’t say her name without smiling. Her visits must really have been a ray of light during a cloudy day.”

Feeling her cheeks grow warmer, leaving her to wonder whether it was indignation or embarrassment that made it so, Zelda shook her head. “Look, I am sure that I am making it sound way worse than it really was. Most of the time, I was pretty happy, it was just a matter of those few times where he—”

“Where he made it so that you decided against studying engineering just because he did not want it?” Ganondorf countered.

It was not a personal attack, and still, Zelda bristled, hearing how her words gained a harsh edge. “That’s just what parents do—they tell you whether or not the plans you have are possible to pursue and try to keep you from messing up. It is about loving your family and wanting the best for them.” her pulse was racing, Zelda all too aware of the fact that the sudden spike in her heartrate could in no way be attributed to the way their pace had slowed to a halt, leaving her to stand there as she took a deep breath, trying her best to calm down before finally looking back up at Ganondorf. Seeing the way he had knitted his brows together, something creeping into his gaze that looked far too much like pity, Zelda found herself instantly regretting that, but still, she forced herself to keep looking at him as she regained control over her voice. “I am sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

Ganondorf did not respond immediately, instead looking at her for another moment before his gaze flickered from her face to the handle of the trolley. Following his line of sight, Zelda saw how her knuckles had turned white, the outline of the bones making them seem almost skeletal. The image stayed with her, feeling like it had burnt an impression of itself onto her eyelids to stay there even as she let go of the plastic handle.

When he spoke, there was something in Ganondorf’s voice that made it sound like he was talking to a scared animal. “Zelda, I realise that this is really not something I should continue to pry into if you tell me not to, and feel free to tell me to shut up right now, but… you know that you can criticise him even though he is dead, right? Him being dead doesn’t mean that you have to praise each and every one of his decision for the rest of your life if that is not how you really feel.”

Zelda was halfway about to open her mouth to tell him that he had misunderstood the situation completely when she felt the tears press against her resolve not to let the easy and light conversation between them be derailed by her sinking back into thoughts about her father and how she had left him and everyone else behind in the end.

The words sounded more like sobs than anything else as she wiped the tears away. “That is easy for you to say; there is still a chance that your family is alive somewhere out there.”

The way Ganondorf let go of the trolley completely, stepping back and away from her like she had just hit him, let her know that she had made a mistake the moment the words had left her mouth. Already, Zelda could almost hear how the rush to try to undo even a little of the damage she had just made would manifest in her rambling, trying her best to take back the fact that, even though she was suspecting that he was only using Labrynna and the chance that the spread of the disease had been interrupted by the ocean to keep himself from giving in to the looming sense of hopelessness, she had just spit it out like a weapon for her to use against him to get him to leave the subjects she did not want to talk about be.

But before she got the chance to say a word, Ganondorf simply fixed her with a sad stare. “You would be surprised.”

He looked down at the ground, a twitch running along his cheek like he was struggling to keep back the tears, and, for a moment, all Zelda could do was to look at him, wondering what he could be referring to. It seemed like only days ago that she would not have hesitated to name the mission as the reason for his melancholy, looking at Ganondorf and concluding that, much like she was already preparing herself for the moment they would hopefully be able to cross Faron Sea only to discover that the disease had affected Labrynna as well, he too was aware of the fact that he was clinging to a hope that might very well turn out to have been extinguished already. Now, however, as Ganondorf sniffled, the attempt at stifling the sound by breathing in at the same time only serving to further draw her attention to it, Zelda was not so sure about what to think anymore.

She was about to ask what he meant, when the sound of twigs breaking and leaves rustling behind her made her spin around, the sound of something heavy moving around near them already sending adrenaline through her veins as she tried to determine the distance between the two of them and the source of the noise.

The forest. The conclusion was clear, even if the combination of the leaves and the lack of light near the forest floor kept her from being able to see exactly what or where the noise originated from. It was coming from the forest.

She moved without thinking, having already stepped forwards, letting go of the handle of the trolley, to stand in front of Ganondorf, the thought that using herself as a barrier would be a pretty useless way of shielding him from the thing moving through the forest with how she lacked several centimetres in height when compared to the person standing behind her only a whisper in the back of her mind as she reflectively reached towards the Sheikah Slate in the trolley, pushing aside a tin of beans before she was stopped by a hand on her shoulder. The realisation that, with how heavy the footfalls were, the sound she was hearing could never have been created by the source of the sense of being watched only struck her a moment later. It did not make her feel better at all, the sight of pure fear flashing across Ganondorf’s expression as she looked back up at him only serving to further deepen the sense of there being something seriously wrong.

“Do you…” Ganondorf did not look at her as he spoke, not once allowing his attention to be drawn away from where they could just barely make out the individual trees growing closest to the edge of the forests with how everything appeared to bleed together into a solid wall of green, “do you know what it is?”

Zelda did not. Of course she did not know what they were hearing, something she knew Ganondorf had already realised as he let go of her shoulder, leaving her to stand there, frozen, with her arm still halfway extended to reach for the Sheikah Slate, while he bridged the gap between himself and the trolley, stepping out from behind her in the process.

The sound of the axe being pulled from its place next to tins of food and bottles of water, of metal adding to the dissonance that accompanied the sound of footsteps, combined with the fact that, even if the protection would have had no real effect if what they were hearing was the early warning signs of an incoming attack, she was no longer at least standing between her only friend and the source of danger was enough to pull Zelda back to reality.

With the world spinning around her, leaving her unable to focus on more than the sound of something breaking and hitting the ground, Zelda grabbed onto Ganondorf’s arm, keeping him from being able to raise the axe and assume a defensive position. “We have to leave. Now!” keeping the words quiet, Zelda leant in closer towards him, seeing how the panic that had already seeped into her tone of voice was reflected in the way Ganondorf’s gaze flickered towards a point behind her, his eyes widening as what little resistance he had been able to provide in response to her attempt at getting him to give up the idea of them defending themselves from the unknown threat melted away.

Already before she moved, carefully keeping her feet in the same spot as she completed half a turn to take in just what had been able to provoke such a response, Zelda knew that it would be bad, that it was something that would easily be able to outweigh the idea of there possibly being people out there who had dedicated themselves to observing them.

Still, looking across the little expanse of grass that was all that separated them from the edge of the woods and seeing the way the bear’s fur reflected the light of the sun, giving the brown fur a reddish tint, felt like she had just fallen to the ground, the impact forcing all air out of her lungs to instead leave her gasping as she fought to make her brain catch up with what her eyes were seeing, unable to make sense of the sight in front of her.

She had seen bears before. Both in class, the teacher stressing the fact that they were one of the biggest threats to people wanting to go on a hike within the Akkala Province, and when Urbosa had taken her to the zoo, having helped her spot the bear among the trees in the enclosure. But none of that came close to standing there, her hand still resting on Ganondorf’s arm, all strength having left her, with only a little over half a hundred metres of distance between herself and a real-life bear. Back then, there had always seemed to be something almost cute about the bears, the combination of the fur and the slow movements giving them a cuddly appearance. There was nothing cuddly about this bear, however, nothing about the dried mud that had caked in the fur, making it seem pointy as the bear slowly made its way out of the forest, branches breaking around it as it simply pushed right through the foliage without regard for the trees around it, that made it seem like a teddy bear.

No, as she stood there, unable to do anything other than to stare at it, there was no doubt in Zelda’s mind that they had just stumbled into the path of beast of prey.

The bear took another step forward, and despite the lack of elegance to its movement, there was nothing there that did not serve to make it crystal-clear to Zelda that the only reason for its slow pace was that it had yet to look up from the ground and spot them.

Doing her best not to let her voice change that, Zelda kept her full attention directed at the bear as she whispered a hurried command to Ganondorf. “We have to run. Before it spots us—we have to get out of here!”

But rather than making him begin to move away from both the bear and the glint of claws its attempt at digging into the ground revealed, her words appeared to have the opposite effect, Zelda feeling how Ganondorf tensed for a moment before he began to raise the axe again, bringing it up to rest the handle against his shoulder as he stepped around her, shaking his head. “No,” he whispered without looking at her, “we are out in the open. If we move, we will be sure to catch its attention and have it chase after us. If we attack now, at least we will be able to be prepared for the fight.”

Zelda had only just opened her mouth to argue against the idea when the bear seemed to lose its interest for the spot directly in front of it. With the world slowing down around her, Zelda saw the moment it lifted its head, turning to face in the direction of where they had yet to move away from the road, two people next to a trolley, armed with nothing but an axe that had never been intended for them to use to defend themselves from a bear. Slowly, giving Zelda more than enough time to once again look at the distance between them and realise that, unlike them, the bear had kilos upon kilos of muscle and strength to help it reduce the metres between them to zero, the bear raised its nose into the air, the sound of her heartbeat being the only thing that marked the time passing as something that should be measured in seconds rather than hours as the bear opened its jaw.

The roar was deafening even where they were standing, and yet, it was still not enough to tear Zelda’s gaze away from the tusks it revealed. They should not have been visible, or at least not as noticeable as they were, not with how they still had a short distance between them that Zelda was nowhere near naïve enough to believe would protect them, should the bear charge towards them, but as she stood there, frozen in place, not even able to make an attempt at fleeing that would ultimately have achieved nothing, she saw the yellow surface of the tusks and the little splatters of red that decorated them just as clearly as if she had been standing directly in front of the beast.

With the sound of her pulse ringing in her ears, Zelda realised that that moment would arrive within seconds, the bear closing its jaw again as it shifted its weight around. She did not need to think back to the lessons on wild animals from back before the world had ended to know that it was a matter of seconds before it would be sprinting towards them, possibly several hundreds of kilos of muscle, teeth, and claws against the almost laughable defence of an axe.

Her life should have flashed before her eyes. It was what she had always expected would happen in that kind of situation, for everything to come to a sudden halt to allow her to look back on everything that had happened throughout her life, facing past mistakes and victories, but, to Zelda, it felt almost like the events that followed the bear readying itself for the attack took place over the course of a single heartbeat.

From somewhere next to the bear, a figure appearing from behind one of the trees on the outskirts of the forest from one moment to the next, someone yelled at her.

Knowing that it could only have taken her a fraction of a second to understand what they were saying, it felt almost like it could not have happened, like she was imagining things as she tried to conjure up a hope that they might survive after all, as Zelda followed the command for her to get to the ground without thinking, not daring to take her eyes off the bear for even a moment to fully look at the person who had emerged from the forest.

The sound of gravel being disturbed next to her was enough to let her know that Ganondorf had done the same, even as her field of vision became nothing more than little stones and sand that covered the road, making her nose and eyes water as she followed the yelled directions for her to use her hands to cover the nape of her neck and the back of her head.

Lying on the ground, Zelda felt how the entire world echoed the sound of the bear’s lumbering gait, every last rock and stone moving alongside it. She should have closed her eyes and felt her body tense in preparation for the attack, but as she lay there, the only thing she could do was to stare directly down at the ground and wait, the seconds slipping away from her as her attempt at judging the distance between herself and the bear was sabotaged by the frantic sound of her own heartbeat mimicking the heavy sound of paws against the ground. But even then, Zelda knew that it would happen any second now, the bear reaching them, ready to attack.

Only, it never did. Rather than a sudden, sharp pain and what she hoped would be a quick sense of losing her senses to instead find herself surrounded by darkness, Zelda felt how her nose and eyes itched as a smell not unlike the one she had experienced back when she had misread a recipe and failed to notice the absurdly large amount of hot peppers she thought it called for enveloped her. It was followed by the sound of someone yelling, but either she was too far away from a world where talking would have held any meaning for her or else they were not meant as words but rather, low, guttural sounds. No matter the explanation, fact was that she stayed still, unsure of whether it was the fear that kept her there or if she had physically lost all ability to move, leaving her to feel every last rumble travel through the ground as the sound of the bear’s heavy gait finally began to move away from them.

It was leaving them, and with what little rational thought she was still capable of finding among the whirlpool of dread and fear, Zelda could recognise the fact that, even if the person from the woods was armed, even if they had only appeared to gain the chance to kill them themselves, she would have faced them a hundred times if it meant being able to avoid the sharp tusks of the bear. But there was a divide between knowing that and not being frozen with fear, not even the knowledge that she would be better off at least seeing who she would face being able to compel her to lift her head or get up from the ground, that was far too wide for her to bridge, leaving Zelda to instead press a little harder against the back of her head like that would be enough to protect her from the unknown person who had just saved their lives.

They were tired. In the silence that followed the bear’s retreat, Zelda could hear the wheezing sound of their breathing as clearly as if it had been her own, the adrenaline seemingly leaving them after it had given them the speed necessary to reach the bear before it had got the chance to cross the field that separated it from the two travellers.

Perhaps that, the fact that, if nothing else, at least she and Ganondorf were now only having to face another person rather than an animal that far outweighed them both, was what finally gave her the courage to lift her hands, not wasting a moment before pushing herself up from the ground to keep the seconds of her leaving the back of her head and neck vulnerable at a minimum.

There was someone standing in front of them. Of course, from the moment she had heard the yell, audible even above the bear’s roar, deep down, Zelda had known what it would mean, that there was still someone out there, someone other than her and Ganondorf. But even then, standing there, with not even two metres of air between them, and looking at the person who had just saved their lives, facing a bear without thought for their own safety, it was as if she was only then realising the full extent of it. There was someone else out there, someone other than just her and Ganondorf.

Next to her, Zelda was vaguely aware of the fact that Ganondorf had also risen from the ground, closing the distance between them to stand next to her, a gesture that was perhaps meant to signal to the stranger that, no matter what, they were there together and would still be able to fight, but had its meaning removed by the fact that the axe was still lying on the ground as Ganondorf stepped forwards, putting himself a few centimetres closer to the stranger.

He looked wild. That was the only word Zelda could find that was able to aptly describe the way his hair stuck out from his head, little locks clumping together, a few twigs, still decorated with green leaves, sticking out of his hairstyle from where he had seemingly jumped through the curtain of leaves to get to the bear in time, the presence of Ganondorf next to him only serving to further emphasise the mud on his clothes. Though she had not missed the way her own hair had become shiny with grease over the days, the attempts at washing it in the river not able to replicate the luxury of a warm water, nor the way her clothes smelt of the days she had spent in it, as she looked at the person in front of her, Zelda suddenly felt almost embarrassingly clean, like she and Ganondorf had just discovered that, while they had been able to maintain a bit of normalcy in their lives, the rest of the world had been fully submerged in the chaos. But that was not what had happened. It was not a matter of them having lived like kings within the protection of the town walls, but rather a case of them having stumbled across the path of not only a bear, but another living person as well.

Trying to gauge his thoughts and intentions, Zelda gathered up the courage to look directly into his eyes, only to find that the stranger had raised walls around himself that kept her from being able to read his emotions by looking at him.

Exchanging a quizzical glance with Ganondorf, Zelda was relieved to see the same confusion she felt reflected in his eyes, the little throw of the head in the direction of the person in front of them more than enough to let her know that he too was trying to figure out who the person in question was and why he had appeared to save them only to now stare at them while looking like he had no intention of ever explaining what had just happened.

Perhaps that was really what he was thinking. As much as Zelda hoped that she was wrong, there was something about the distant look in his eyes that served to reinforce the idea that, to him, they might very well just be an obstacle in his path towards his goal. However, if that was indeed the answer, that still left the question of why he had saved them unaddressed, why he had decided to put himself directly into the path of a bear when it would have been so easy for him to stay within the safe hiding place of the woods.

Most likely, Zelda would never have found the courage and the words to ask him for an explanation, instead merely accepting the fact that the second person she had found alive would disappear back into the forest he had come from without another word. Maybe that was why the sound of his voice, rough and hoarse, the throaty sound letting them know of the weeks of disuse that had most likely preceded that exact moment, made her jump.

Pressing a hand to her chest, Zelda could only look back over at the man, hoping that her reaction had not been enough to either offend him or make him decide to fall silent again.

However, it appeared almost like he had not even noticed it, looking at a point directly between her and Ganondorf as he spoke. “You should have been more careful. The bear was drawn to you because it could smell the food in those open cans.” he nodded, and, following his line of sight, Zelda realised that he had not just been staring at an indeterminable point behind them, but rather looking towards the tin of beans they had tried to close by wrapping a sheet of paper around it, securing it with an elastic.

“Uh,” Zelda heard herself stammer, suddenly feeling like a little child getting reprimanded by a teacher as she tried to take in what had just happened, “thank you? For saving our lives and… for the tip?” it was not meant to sound like a question, but already from the moment she reached the end of the sentence, Zelda could hear how her voice rose, making it sound like just that.

If he noticed it, the man at least did not comment on it, instead acknowledging her attempt at thanking him with an indecipherable look before redirecting his attention towards Ganondorf. For a brief second, Zelda could almost convince herself that she saw a glimmer of recognition flicker in his gaze, a twitch running along his jaw, making it seem like he was pulled in two directions, torn between what could perhaps have become a smile if given another second and the threat of how he reached towards his belt, making it seem almost like he was about to reach for a weapon, but grasping at air instead. The moment had passed before she had blinked, and still, Zelda could not stop seeing the way he had stared at Ganondorf as she looked between the two, seeing a faint copy of the same sentiment echoed in Ganondorf’s hurry to step in front of her, creating an obstacle in the path of the man, should he try to reach her.

But the man did not make any attempt at doing that. Instead, he stood still, fixing Ganondorf with a long glare before seemingly reaching a conclusion to a question only he was privy to and sending him a curt nod before speaking once again. “Don’t thank me for that, not when I was just doing what everyone would have done.”

Zelda had her doubts about whether or not running towards a bear, risking their own safety to save two strangers, would really have been so obvious to everyone else as the man in front of her made it sound like, but decided against voicing her doubt. With the best impression of levity in her voice that she could find the energy for, she instead smiled at him. “You saved our lives. Even if you don’t think that it is something to be thankful for, you still decided to put yourself in harm’s way for two strangers.”

Making a noncommittal sound, the stranger shrugged, still not taking his eyes off of Ganondorf as he spoke. “I just did what I was taught to do in the event that I would come face to face with a bear.” as he finally shifted his attention away from Ganondorf, Zelda instantly following his line of sight towards the spot where broken branches and a hole in the foliage still spoke of just where the bear had run back into the forest, some of the tension finally seemed to leave his expression, his voice growing a bit softer as he continued. “Although, I have to admit that I never thought that I would find a honeyvore bear this far away from the Akkala Highlands.”

It was not much, but even the slightest glimpse of a way to quell some of the animosity she could almost see as a physical presence in the air between the stranger and Ganondorf was more than enough for Zelda to be willing to make an attempt at reaching out, and so, she did exactly that, carefully keeping her voice light as she tilted her head to the side while echoing his words. “Oh? Are you from the Akkala Highlands then?”

Instantly, she felt the atmosphere change, though not for the better. While the man did indeed seem to move some of his attention away from Ganondorf, the tension between them fading a little, the relief was short-lived as it was instead replaced by a combination of a tone of voice that did not leave any doubt about how she was centimetres away from overstepping her boundaries and an almost frozen way of gesticulating towards her as he answered. “I grew up on a ranch in the Akkala Highlands, but there is nothing left for me there anymore. Now, I come from the forest as much as any other place.”

Before Zelda could get the chance to further mess up what little sense of companionship she had thought she might have been able to create by asking their rescuer about himself, Ganondorf came to her aid, sending her a short glance that would have made sure to silence her even if she had not already felt all words shrivel up and die in her throat before holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “All right, I think we can relate to that sentiment.” the laugh Ganondorf let the attempt at smoothing over Zelda’s mistake be followed by rang hollow, and as a moment passed without the stranger giving any indication that he would mirror it, Ganondorf was also quick to clear his throat, becoming serious in a matter of seconds. “No, but really, we can’t thank you enough for what you did. You—you definitely saved our lives back there.”

“I just did what was right.” another shrug.

Zelda was slowly but surely beginning to get the impression that it was the only thing the stranger in front of them knew as a response to their attempts at getting him to share anything about himself, when he looked over at her again.

Something changed. Later, Zelda would not have been able to name just what it was, but she knew that she could pinpoint the exact moment where the guarded expression softened a bit, the hard line of his shoulders slowly blurring as he seemed to relax a bit. Perhaps it should have worried her, sent her thoughts in the direction of the pictures stored on her phone, but as Zelda looked back over at him, while she had no way of explain her reasoning for believing it, she could not ignore the feeling that it would be all right after all.

Almost as if the prove her right, the stranger finally appeared to relent a bit, his voice losing the harsh edge it had just gained as he looked back over at Ganondorf, sticking out his hand after a moment of silence. “Link,” he said, a short pause following the word, giving Zelda the moment it took for her to realise that it was his name before he confirmed it, “my name is Link.”

The seconds passed, silence being all that met Link’s words. From the way Ganondorf held his breath, Zelda knew that he too was waiting for Link to share his last name with them.

But the brief moment of silence soon became a minute, the seconds moving along to make it clear that it was not going to happen, Ganondorf only barely managing to mimic Link’s gesture before the awkwardness was able to move back into the air between them. As he shook Link’s hand once, it could hardly have been more evident just how much Ganondorf tried to keep his voice balanced, not too friendly and not too hard as he hurried through the sentence. “Oh, yeah—uh, well, I am Ganondorf Dragmire, and that is Zelda Bosphoramus.”

Seeing how Link sent her a thoughtful look, almost making it appear like he was trying to figure out the answer to a riddle, Zelda hurried to wave at him, getting a tiny glimpse of a smile in return before Link pulled back his hand, taking a step away from both of them to instead shoot them a look Zelda was not sure how to read. The same seemed to be the case for Ganondorf, or at least Zelda noted the way he shifted his weight from side to side, clearly uncomfortable with the situation they had found themselves in.

Perhaps she should have found it painfully awkward as well. After all, she only had to imagine something like it happening back when she had still been in school to know that it would have been enough to make her hide in the library during lunch to avoid anyone seeing her. But now, there was something almost laughable about all those memories. It could all just be yet another effect of how it was not even five minutes since she had truly believed that she was going to die out there, having survived the disease only to be killed by a bear, but even as Link sent her a stare, Zelda found herself meeting it without flinching to instead repay it with one of her own.

The smile was barely more than a faint pull of muscles around his mouth at first, but as Link bowed his head, there was no denying that he was indeed smiling at her as he spoke. “Well, in that case, Ganondorf and Zelda, I suppose that you won’t mind me asking what you are doing out here with a trolley filled to the brim with everything one could want these days.”

It didn’t matter whether they really wanted to share their plans with him. Even if it had not been for how Zelda was intensely aware that Link had just saved their lives, the simple fact that, for all they knew, they could be the last three people in the world was more than enough to erase any reservations she might have had about sharing their plans with him.

In the end, however, even the little second it took her to reach that conclusion was still enough for Ganondorf to have answered for her, Zelda looking over at him only to find that, not only had he nodded, he had also moved back over to the trolley, picking up the axe as he went to dig through the heaps of food before finally finding the binder they had shoved the different maps into. The speed with which he leafed through it was more than enough for Zelda to doubt that Link noticed the slight hesitation in his steps as he crossed the distance between them to show him one of the maps.

“Well, you see, we have reasons to believe that my aunts might still be alive. They were in Labrynna when everything… when everything happened, so we were thinking that, perhaps, there was a chance that…”

The way Ganondorf let the sentence trail off as he smoothened out a crease in the paper was enough to set Zelda into motion, the gravel crunching beneath her feet as she went over to his side.

However, before she got the chance to reach out towards Ganondorf, hoping that perhaps a comforting pat would be able to take away just a little of the trembling sound that had sneaked into his voice, Link had already finished the sentence for him, his demeanour softening slightly as he did so. “You were thinking that the disease might not have affected Labrynna as well?” as Ganondorf nodded, it looked almost like Link was about to ask another question, only for him to close his mouth again and instead look back down at the map.

Zelda saw how he frowned, no doubt searching for the most obvious way for them to reach Labrynna only to reach the conclusion that, with the way they were heading, they had either got lost in their quest to pass through both Holodrum and Termina to get to Labrynna or they were planning to reach it by water.

The thought was confirmed moments later as Link tapped his finger against the map, slowly making his way over the different names that had been printed onto the page before coming to a halt where the illustration stopped just before it would have showed the Faron Province to instead look back up at them with an glint of something Zelda would place somewhere between fear and admiration in his eyes. “You are planning to sail across Faron Sea.” it was a simple observation, not one that left any rooms for questions, but Zelda still found herself bowing her head without a word. Not for the first time, the question of just what type of person would willingly try to chase away a bear for strangers emerged from the general confusion and fear that had yet to fully relinquish its hold as Zelda watched how Link appeared to disappear into his own mind, his hands raising to grip at his head, his breathing growing shallower and faster. And then, almost as quickly as he had first moved away from the conversation at hand, Link stood up straight again, his hands falling back to rest at his sides as he took a deep breath before turning his attention towards Ganondorf once again. “You are planning to go to Lurelin Village and then find a ship you can use to sail across Faron Sea to reach Labrynna, aren’t you?”

Ganondorf nodded without a word.

Zelda could not blame him for choosing to remain silent. Not only was there hardly any question to the statement, the slightly inquiring lilt to the words feeling more like a an act of courtesy than a sign that any part of him expected for them to deny the idea, but even as Link stood there, keeping his shoulders back and back straight as kept on staring down at the map, she could still recall just how quickly it had shifted, the image of a perfect posture instead replaced with quick breathing and what looked almost like panic in his eyes. One thing was certain though: his silence left the one question that had not been asked yet despite Zelda having no second thoughts about assigning it far more weight and meaning than the exact details of a plan they had yet to fully think through.

Would he like to come along?

Trying her best to calm herself and find the patience to perhaps let Link bring up the possibility of him joining them herself, Zelda counted her own heart’s soft rhythm in her chest, exchanging a short glare with Ganondorf in the process. She could see her own plan reflected in his raised eyebrow and the little nod in Link’s direction.

What she deemed to be about a full minute of tense silence managed to pass before Zelda accepted the fact that, either they were going to have to part ways with Link without having any means of contacting him again, or she would have to be the one to ask him to come along.

There was no need to clear her throat, but Zelda still made sure to cough a couple of times while sending Ganondorf a slight scowl. If she would have to be the one to risk making Link retreat back into the shell he had just constructed around himself in the matter of seconds, she could at least make sure that Ganondorf knew that she would rather not have been given the task. Besides, the cough was enough to get Link to turn his attention back towards her, Zelda hurrying to replace the childish expression with a smile instead, having halfway reached out towards him by the time she caught herself, letting her hand hang in the air for a moment as she remembered that, even though they might be alone in the world, just because she and Ganondorf had agreed not to leave each other within a day of knowing each other, the same might not be the case for Link. Aware of the fact that there wasn’t really anything she could do to hide the mistake, Zelda could only hope that her face had not turned red as she spoke. “Do you want to come along?”

Immediately, Zelda saw a myriad of different emotions make their way across Link’s features, a tug at the muscles near his eye being followed by a frown, a smile, something that looked like he was about to cry, and then, finally, an abysmal amount of fear as Link, rather than giving her an answer, looked back down at the map in front of him. The tip of his finger was tracing the eastern coastline as Zelda saw how he was whispering something to himself, but as much as tried to catch even a word of what he was saying, she could not make out any individual words from the muttered whispers.

Risking a look over at Ganondorf, Link clearly too absorbed by whatever it was that had stolen his attention to notice the number of glares being exchanged at a rapid pace above his head, Zelda tried to wordlessly communicate the question of just what was happening. From the way he looked from her and then down at Link before once again looking over at her, giving her his response with a little shake of the head, Ganondorf did not possess any more answers than she did.

It did not leave her with any more answers than before, but the fact that she was at the very least not alone in being confused about just what was happening was enough for Zelda to be able to muster up a somewhat convincing smile as Link finally appeared to tear himself away from the map to instead meet her gaze directly, something steely forming in his eyes as he spoke. “Sure. I will join you guys.”

She wanted to say that she felt an overwhelming sense of joy rise up in her chest to chase away any other emotion the same way it had happened when she and Ganondorf had made the decision not to leave each other behind. But as Zelda found herself unable to maintain eye contact with Link, instead looking over at Ganondorf with what she already knew would be panic hidden away directly beneath the paper-thin mask of pretending that she knew what they were doing, that she was not finding herself thinking back to the almost electrical feeling of enmity between Link and Ganondorf, she already felt tired at the thought of adding another variable to the tense silence and long hours of coldness that would follow her and Ganondorf’s missteps when trying to navigate a conversation without bringing up any painful memories.

+++

They walked in silence for the rest of the day.

Unlike what Zelda had feared, the silence had not followed any innocent attempt at keeping a conversation going that turned out to have poked directly into something one of them did not want to share. Instead, it had become the status quo right from the moment Ganondorf had, with a voice that was just a bit too shrill to sound genuine, declared that they were thankful for the fact that Link would stay with them, only to then spin around, the binder in his arms providing him with a reason to walk back towards the trolley and leave Zelda and Link where they had been standing a few metres away but the long paces revealing that he was in a hurry to get away from them. Zelda did honestly not know if it was any better than the alternative.

No matter what, it was a relief to see the sun begin to sink down behind the horizon in the distance, painting the sky first orange and then a deep crimson that made it seem like it was bleeding as Link raised his hand, signalling for them to stop. It was the closest they had got to exchanging even something as meaningless as a perfunctory compliment ever since they had met him, so though Zelda could feel how Ganondorf tensed next to her, she was grateful for what little interaction they would have.

Turning to look at their surroundings, it was apparent that Link was trying to decide where they would put up the tent for the night, the orange light allowing Zelda to see how he mumbled something to himself, tapping a finger against his chin for a moment before pointing towards a small group of trees that rose up against the sky about a hundred metres down the road. “There,” he said, his tone of voice not leaving room for any disagreements, “we should stay there for the night.”

“All right!” Zelda clasped her hands together, already hearing how grating her voice sounded, just a little too stilted for her to be able to believe that the energetic tone was sincere and not just the result of having walked in silence for several hours, all too aware of how both Link and Ganondorf kept on sending each other looks that would perhaps have been all-out hostile had it not been for the hint of confusion that was also present, mitigating it a bit.

They reached the trees in a matter of minutes despite the dust clinging to the wheels of the trolley as they moved, Zelda having to fight the urge to run ahead and leave Link and Ganondorf behind to try to work out just what was going on. If she had been able to ignore how deeply uncomfortable it was to be caught in between what looked like it could perhaps have been pure enmity if not for the fact that she was certain she would have known if Ganondorf and Link had ever met before or otherwise given each other a reason to continue to send glares after each other, Zelda would perhaps have laughed at the thought that all it had taken for her to become the one to try to smooth over the awkward silences rather than the one who would create them by refusing to talk about her own family despite Ganondorf clearly having no such reservations was for them to all but stumble across the life Link had led up until that point. As it was, however, having to be the one to try to redirect their attention from each other, knowing that she was fighting a losing battle as she tried to ask about the too large shirt Link was wearing, the fabric hanging awkwardly off his shoulders, was not exactly something that left her with a desire to laugh at it, so instead, Zelda kept her gaze fixed on the tree directly in front of her as they reached the cluster rather than anywhere where she could once again be brought face to face with the little signs of animosity between Link and Ganondorf.

They spread out, Zelda not missing the fact that Ganondorf seemed intent on putting as much distance between himself and Link, choosing to walk over to lean against the nearest tree as Link dug through their supplies.

Perhaps she should have considered the fact that he did at least not comment on Link pushing some of the tins aside, clearly searching for something, a slight victory for the sense of companionship that had hung in the air only half a day ago, but as Zelda looked at Ganondorf standing there, arms folded in front of him, and Link returning, a pile of rope piled up on top of a plastic bag in his arms, only to step past them to, without a word, begin to tie the rope around the bag, Zelda seeing how a few cans of food weighed it down as he threw the other end of the rope over one of the branches above their heads, she was already tired of the unsaid and unaddressed feelings that clung to the air. It was not nearly enough for her to outright regret having invited Link to come along, but as she noted the way Ganondorf frowned when Link pulled at the rope, lifting the bag several metres up into the air before securing it by tying the rope around the tree, all she could do was to try to go over the few seconds of silence that had separated the invitation and Link agreeing to join them, desperately trying to search for anything, any slight grimace made by either of them, anything at all, that could explain the issue they seemed to both refuse to let go and address.

But as much as she tried, there was nothing she could point at and name as the reason, nothing she could try to get them to talk about to bring an end to the tension.

A moment passed before she realised her mistake, Zelda having to suppress a slight gasp as she recalled the way Link had instinctively reached for something.

There was something there, there simply had to be.

Still, for as much as she tried to see the pattern, there was nothing there for her to hold onto in her attempt at connecting the different issues with one another.

Shooting a glance towards Ganondorf, Zelda noted the way he kept on looking between Link and the ground, something flickering across his face that did not look entirely as full of animosity as his behaviour had been so far. As she looked at where Link gave the rope a tug, clearly satisfied with his work if his little smile was any indication, Zelda could not help but wonder if it would perhaps be better if she chose not to confront them directly. If nothing else, the little smiles were better than outright frowning at one another, even if the improved atmosphere was not directly aimed at the other.

However, before she got the chance to put together anything that had any semblance of being a plan, the moment had passed, Link turning back around to look directly at them, the smile fading as Ganondorf left the tree to instead walk over to stand next to Zelda. But at least he did not mention it, instead pointing towards the bag above their heads. “To keep it out of the reach of any other bears who might have decided to make the journey from the Akkala Highlands.”

He made it seem like it was obvious, something they should have known to do, and perhaps it was to him. To Zelda however, as she stood there, looking up at where the tins stretched out the plastic of the bag, pulled down by gravity only to be stopped by the rope tied around the bag, it was nowhere near an instinctive thing to do.

At her side, Ganondorf hummed something that sounded almost like a quiet ‘thank you’ that was only just slightly too hushed for Zelda to be entirely certain that that was the words she had heard. Still, as Ganondorf turned around to walk back for the tent, placing it down on the ground to begin digging out the tent canvas without another word, she took the chance and walked over to Link.

He had not moved away from the tree, his pose almost mirroring Ganondorf’s from those few minutes ago, leaning against the tree trunk, but without having folded his arms in front of him, not outright refusing to help with the tent, but also not offering his assistance directly.

“We…” Zelda paused, already sensing how the worry that she might have made a mistake rose up in her chest as she waited for Link to acknowledge her presence. The moment that followed seemed agonisingly long, but finally, Link tore his attention away from Ganondorf to instead look at her, and while he did not smile per se, there was something in his eyes that made her continue, “well, I just wanted to say that we are both very happy that you decided to come along.”

Reminding herself not to make her worries obvious by holding her breath, instead counting to herself to make sure that there would not be any sign of her agitation, Zelda waited for Link to bring up whatever it was that had been able to create such a tense mood between him and Ganondorf so soon after they had first met each other, waited for an explanation, something that would leave her with an idea about what to do.

But, rather than offering up any kind of explanation, Link simply sent her a long look before bowing his head. “I am—I am happy to have found you two as well.”

There was something there; Zelda could feel it, sensing the truth beginning to emerge from beneath the layer of silence of long glares. All she had to do was to dig a little deeper, and then she would have her answers, perhaps allowing her to find a way to counteract the tense atmosphere that had followed them into the evening.

Link did not give her the chance to put the plan into motion, however, instead pushing against the tree as he walked over to where Ganondorf had folded out the canvas, picking up the hammer to, without a word, begin helping him with putting up the tent.

In another world, it could have been a sign of him trying to make up for the last couple of hours, but as Zelda looked at the way they both seemed to make a point out of not talking to each other unless it was absolutely necessary for the process, she was only happy to stand back and not have to let herself be involved in whatever their issue with each other might be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They met Link! That was a scene I had really looked forwards to writing, so I am really happy that we got to that now! Also, I know that they said that Link is from Hateno Village in the Nintendo Treehouse video, but I planned this story before that so I decided not to change that detail :)


	7. Chapter 7

The following morning did not provide Zelda with any revelations as for how she was supposed to handle the shift in their way of travelling.

As they packed up without a word, Link lowering down the food once again to place it in the trolley, Ganondorf waiting for him to do so before he began to push it along the road, but not doing any more than that to acknowledge the fact that Link was there, Zelda fund herself almost wishing that they could go back to the point in time where she had been the one to instigate the long hours of silence rather than the one walking behind the other two, glancing back and forth between Ganondorf and Link as she tried to think of something to say that would not risk making everything even worse than it already was. It was not what she had expected when she had asked Link to come along, not at all, and while Zelda knew that there were still so many things left unsaid between her and Ganondorf that it would have been naïve to think that she could in any way predict what he would think, she could not help but wonder why he had not stopped her before she had asked Link to come with them. With how he walked in front of them, keeping a few metres of distance to where Link was walking, keeping his gaze fixed in the ground, it certainly seemed like he would have preferred for him not to be there.

The entire world had ended. Zelda had to remind herself of that. The entire world had ended, and her and Ganondorf trying to reach Labrynna in what she was almost completely convinced was a hopeless belief that his family might still be alive was not some sort of noble adventure, but even then, Zelda could not deny that part of her was annoyed that they could not at least try to speak with each other, try to let the three of them be friendly to one another now that they might very well be the only ones left in the world.

The silence made the hours seem even longer than they would otherwise have been as they moved across Romani Plains, Zelda catching herself constantly reaching for her Sheikah Slate just to make sure that time was still passing, each time catching herself the moment before she would have pulled it out of her pocket to waste energy. Instead, she looked up at where the sun climbed across the sky, trying her best to decide how much more time she would have to wait before suggesting that it was time for them to sit down to eat lunch would not come across as a too obvious attempt at once again getting the two others to talk or at least look at one another.

Looking back down to see how Link had picked up a branch from the side of the road, having slung it over his shoulder as he walked, Zelda was not sure what exactly it was about the image of him walking there in front of her that made her decide that the silence had lasted long enough. All she knew was that she found herself quickening her pace to reduce the distance between them.

If Link knew why she fell into step with him, matching her pace to his as they followed along behind Ganondorf, the wheels of the trolley whirling up enough dust to make Zelda have to pull the front of her shirt up to cover her mouth to be able to talk without coughing, he hid it well, simply sending her a short glance before continuing on without a word. Less than a day ago, Zelda might have accepted it as a sign that, no matter what it was that was the issue with him and Ganondorf, he did not want to talk about it, but now, as she followed his line of sight only to look at Ganondorf through the dust in the air, Zelda found herself annoyed by the way it seemed like they both knew the reason for the two of them not liking each other and had simply agreed not to tell her about it.

Perhaps that was why her voice was a bit harsher, Zelda having to take a deep breath to regain enough control over it to make sure that Ganondorf would not be able to overhear them before continuing. “So… I take it that the two of you know each other somehow.”

Link jerked, and for a moment, it looked like he had truly not noticed her presence. Still, the surprise on his face soon gave way to an expression that might have fooled Zelda into thinking that he was surprised by her words if she had been able to ignore the fact that she had just spent the last day seeing first-hand that there was something between the two. “No,” Link said, shaking his head, “no, I don’t—” he stumbled over the word, Zelda hearing how he had to clear his throat, the sound of coughs a welcome distraction from the silence that had reigned for the last day, “that is, I don’t think that I have met him before.”

Had it not been for how Link looked down at the ground, a glimpse of something Zelda recognised as pure, honest puzzlement muddling the frown she had expected to see, Zelda was sure that that would have been the final straw, the thing that would have made her tell him exactly what she thought of the fact that neither of them seemed happy to find that at least three people had survived the disease.

As it was, however, Zelda instead stayed silent as Link looked up, the bewildered expression not disappearing to make way for the usual scowl as he looked over towards Ganondorf, waited as Link opened his mouth multiple times, clearly searching for words, before finally speaking again. “Look, Zelda, I… I know that this might sound weird, and I know that I haven’t met him before, but there is still—there is this feeling,” pressing a hand against his chest, Link looked from Ganondorf and back over at her, “there is this feeling here that I should remember him from somewhere. Does that make sense?”

She was about to answer that it did not, about to ask him if they could perhaps have seen each other online, when something about the way Link looked down at his chest, the way he looked almost like he was trying to recall a memory that had been buried somewhere deep down in his consciousness, brought her back to both Hyrule Supermarket in the moments after she has realised that she had been about to attack a fellow survivor and possible friend rather than the source of the feeling of being observed and the way Ganondorf had seemed almost surprised to hear that she did not have any family in Gerudo Town. There had to be a rational explanation for it, perhaps the two of them having seen each other online back before that universe had disappeared entirely, and yet, as Zelda tried her best to gauge the likelihood of that being the case, she had to admit that for all three of them to somehow have had enough interactions with each other for them to have left an impact that could explain the animosity between Ganondorf and Link while still not being something they would remember did not seem like a probable explanation.

Perhaps Link took her silence as her agreeing with him, for his voice became a bit less unsure as he continued. “To tell you the truth, I thought the same thing about you, back when I first saw you, I mean.”

“Me?” Zelda heard herself parrot. “But—” she was only just barely able to stop herself in time before pointing out to Link that, while she would not exactly describe their interactions as anything more than marginally polite, he was nowhere near as curt when talking with her as he was while interacting with Ganondorf, biting her lip as she tried to think of a way to bring up the difference without risking creating the same tense atmosphere between them.

But it would appear that there was no need for that, the way Link threw a confused glance in Ganondorf’s direction making it clear that he too was aware of it in a way that not even the little shrug he gave in response to the unfinished question could hide. “I don’t know,” Link mumbled, “and I know that it doesn’t make sense, but there is just—there is this feeling that I have seen the two of you before, that he… that, for some reason, the two of us don’t like each other very much.”

“Well, if you think that it doesn’t make sense, then why don’t you try to talk with him?” Zelda knew that she was stepping into dangerous territory, feeling almost like she was moving out towards the centre of a frozen lake in the middle of winter with little more than the hope that the layer of ice was thick enough to support her weight to carry her, but the fact that Link at least did not immediately refuse the idea gave her the courage to continue. “I am sure that the two of you would be great friends if you just gave each other a chance.”

Rather than answering her immediately, Link shot her a glance, an expression on his face that Zelda did not know what to think of soon replacing the confused look from before as he looked back and forth between her and Ganondorf for another moment. Then, keeping his voice carefully even, his tone of voice so calm that, had it not been for how Zelda saw him tighten his grip around the tree branch, she would perhaps have been able to believe that they were just having a casual conversation about the weather, Link nodded in the direction of Ganondorf. “It is making you upset that we can’t talk with each other, isn’t it? It is unpleasant for you to have to be the one to try to get us to talk with one another?”

“Uh…” it felt like every word left her mind, her vocabulary instead replaced with loud silence as Zelda tried to think of what to say in response to that.

He was right, having been able to succinctly sum up the thoughts that had accompanied the last couple of hours of having to watch him and Ganondorf not quite being outright hostile to each other but also not doing much to hide their dislike in a way that brought back his claims that it felt like he had met her before despite Zelda being certain that she had never seen Link before in her life. He had to have guessed it based on the fact that she had made yet another attempt at bringing an end to the silence between them, or at least that was what Zelda tried to convince herself was the case. That had to be the reason that he was able to name her reasons for trying to get them to at least show just a bit of friendliness to one another in his first attempt.

Just as he had known her reasons for interfering, Link must have been able to guess the reason for her silence, not waiting for her to figure out just what she could say in response to the fact that a stranger had just been able to guess her thoughts before talking.

With a smile that looked more real than Zelda had dared to hope for given the circumstances, he looked back over at Ganondorf for another moment before nodding. “All right. I will try my best.”

“Thank you,” Zelda mumbled, but she doubted that Link heard it as he had already quickened his pace, leaving her a few metres behind as he caught up with Ganondorf and the trolley, slowing down to walk alongside him.

She stayed behind. It was not necessarily that she wanted to leave them alone, but as Ganondorf tensed for a moment before looking over at Link, the sound of the wheels of the trolley rolling over the uneven road drowning out Link’s voice, only leaving Zelda able to tell that he was even saying anything at all because she could see his lips move, a strained smile she hoped would last longer this time forming as he went silent again, Zelda knew that it was better for her to stay, and not just because, should things take a turn for the worse, it was much less awkward to watch from afar than to have to be in the middle of it. However, as much as she tried not to let herself get her hopes up, even from back there, she could see how Ganondorf at least did not continue walking without a word to Link, instead waiting for a moment, looking out towards a spot next to them before nodding at Link.

It was not much, but as they continued down the road, Zelda was at least able to find a bit of hope that had not been present that morning.

+++

They stopped for lunch in the middle of a meadow, their footsteps and the trolley drawing a clear line from the edge of it towards the little clearing near what Zelda deemed to be the middle of a sea of swift violets.

Trying her best to pretend that she was not paying close attention to Ganondorf and Link’s conversation, the two having gone the try to clear out the area for any flammable materials to put up their camping stove, Zelda dug through their supplies in search for anything that seemed just slightly more appetising than yet another meal of overcooked beans.

She must have been too deep in thoughts, for the sensation of someone placing their hand on her shoulder was enough to make her jerk away from the trolley, her mind already racing towards the paranoid feeling of being watched without being able to tell who or where the observers were.

“I am so sorry!” by the time she had spun around to face him, Link had already raised his hands, taking a step away from her. “I thought you knew that I was here.”

It was just him. Just Link. But even as Zelda might rationally know that everything was as all right as it could be in the moment, it was not enough to calm down her frantically beating heart as she tried to regain control over her breathing.

With a tone of voice she already knew would reveal the instinctive panic, Zelda nodded, aware that she would fail at producing a convincing smile before she spoke. “It’s fine. I was just a bit distracted.”

Link opened his mouth, only to close it again, his gaze flickering from her face to the can in her hand. “I can take care of that,” he said, gesturing towards the can, his comment catching Zelda off guard. Perhaps interpreting the surprise as doubt, Link continued, “I haven’t really had the chance to eat anything that required cooking since… everything, but trust me, I know how to prepare tinned food.”

It didn’t matter if she trusted him and his supposed culinary skills; with the memory of the mush of overcooked pasta and cold beans fresh in her memory, Zelda knew that, no matter how awful he might have been, it would most likely still be an improvement when compared to the food they had eaten so far, a fact that made her hand him the can, letting go of it the moment she was certain he had it with an expression she hoped did not look too relieved. She should have said something, perhaps have thanked him again for saving them from the bear or for willingly offering to take care of lunch, but as Zelda stood there, all she had left after the morning was a sense of bone-deep exhaustion, the kind of tiredness that made it feel like she could have slept for a century and still felt the need for another nap.

Thankfully, Link did not seem to expect her to say anything, only looking down at the tin for another moment before turning around to head back over to the camping stove, whistling a little melody as he did so, leaving her alone again.

It was strange, almost. Back when she had first met Ganondorf and seen for herself that there were still people out there in the world, Zelda had wanted nothing more than to never have to leave him again, but now, as she stood there, so far away from both their supplies and the two others that, had the observers followed them out there, she would not have faulted them for believing that they had formed two different groups, the only feeling that accompanied the thought was relief. Relief that, if nothing else, as long as she was alone, she did not have to continuously keep her thoughts carefully within the boundaries of the few subjects she trusted herself to ponder without falling back into the dark pit of despair and guilt, did not have to worry about just what it would mean for the three of them if she too were to fall silent and refuse to talk with the others.

Some group of survivors they were. Perhaps the last people alive in the world, and they could not even be united in that fact, instead alternating between allowing the dependency to bring them together and tear them apart. In the moment, it looked like it was a case of the former being the case, Link crouching down next to Ganondorf, saying something as he gestured towards the stove, Ganondorf nodding along, but if there was one thing that morning had taught Zelda, it was that it was too good to last. Sooner or later, something was bound to happen to make them move away from one another again, a fact that kept her from bringing herself to join them. If she stayed out of their issues, perhaps it would be easier to handle everything that might happen.

However, as much as Zelda wished for it to be the case, Ganondorf and Link did not appear to share the sentiment. Already as she saw Ganondorf rise from the ground, his relaxed stance not doing much to quell the worry that something had happened, Zelda knew that no matter what sort of armistice they had agreed on, she was about to be pulled into it whether she liked it or not, Ganondorf’s smile as he walked over to her only serving to further strengthen the thought.

Stopping next to her, at least Ganondorf waited for a moment, his feigned interest in watching the breeze sweep across the meadow around them not able to even halfway mask the fact that he had come there to discuss something with her. But, of course, it came to an end, Ganondorf coughing softly like he did not already hold her full attention before turning towards her. “So…” he might almost have been able to make it sound like he had not already planned exactly what to say if it had not been for the carefully controlled edge to his words, Zelda would give him that. “Our little group suddenly grew to consist of three people, huh?”

“Yeah, it did.” Zelda shrugged. He was waiting for her to say something, but as much as she wanted to just get it over with and move past the need for stilted conversations and empty phrases, Zelda could not figure out where the conversation was going.

Apparently, Ganondorf realised that, for, letting out a sigh, he gestured in the direction of where Link had divided the tinned beans between two different cans, alternating between placing them above the blue flame of their stove and pushing it away from the heat. “I don’t think he likes me very much.”

So that was the issue he had come to speak with her about. How he was able to say it while sounding like he did not expect for her to already be aware of that fact was beyond Zelda, but one glance at the conflicting emotions that fought for dominance in Ganondorf’s eyes as he looked back down at her again was more than enough to let her know to keep that thought to herself. It was not what he needed to hear in that moment, not what any of them needed to hear, and as much as she might hate thinking of it as such, treating other people around her and the interactions she had with them as a game, Zelda was well aware of the fact that if she wanted to keep any hope of the two of them moving past whatever past history had informed their behaviour towards one another alive, sharing the things Link had told her with Ganondorf was not a good idea.

So, keeping her voice under control, Zelda tilted her head to the side. “Oh. Is that why you… why you were so silent?”

“I—” Ganondorf frowned, looking down at his hands rather than her, “I don’t know.” gesticulating to himself, almost like he was finding the words as he spoke, Ganondorf continued. “I really don’t know. I mean, I know that—that I have been rude, and I know that—that I would never have acted this way, that it is not right, but… but I just look at him, and there is this feeling of intense… I don’t want to say hate, but it feels like it, like there is someone inside me who is yelling at me not to trust him, not to let myself grow complacent, to always be prepared for an attack whenever I look at him. I know that it doesn’t make sense—” tearing his gaze away from his hands, the silent plea for her to understand was clear to Zelda as he added, “I know that he just saved both of our lives, but… the feeling is still there, somewhere deep inside.”

There was a pattern there. It was not some sort of science experiment, not something where she could manipulate the different variables to gain a better understanding of each, but as Zelda looked over at him, trying to fit the different pieces of a puzzle she did not know what to make of together, it was nevertheless the pattern she found herself focusing on. They had a feeling of having seen each other before. That was something they both had in common. It had to mean something, it simply had to. But other than that, as much as she tried to find an explanation, something that would be able to piece it all together, Zelda could not see anything that would explain feelings as intense as the ones that appeared to have driven Ganondorf to come talk to her. For the two of them to perhaps have had a single bad experience in the past they did not want to share with her, that would perhaps have been able to explain a few snappy remarks, but nothing that would be able to make Ganondorf describe it as ‘hate’, while looking honestly confused that he would feel that way.

“Zelda?” the sound of Ganondorf’s voice brought her back to the situation at hand, a reminder that, as much as she had been used to being able to hide away from the world by hiding in the school’s library or laboratory, her usual strategy of putting distance between herself and her problems would no longer work, as he cocked his head. “Did you hear me?”

Zelda nodded. “Yes, I—sorry, I was just… trying to make everything make sense.”

“Well, tell me when you find the answer.” the sadness in his voice was so clear that it felt almost like it should take physical form. “I know… I know that we have to work together, and I know that I should be able to let go of whatever it is that is influencing me, but…” Ganondorf shook his head, “it just… sometimes, it feels almost impossible to quieten the voice.”

“At least you are trying,” Zelda offered, the attempt at comforting him feeling hollow even to herself.

But perhaps she had underestimated the effect, for, even if he did not exactly smile, Ganondorf looked a little less like he wanted to go back to a point in time before they had met Link to change the course of events as he nodded. “You are right. At least I am trying. It’s just…” and just like that, the little hint of hope vanished again, “I know that he feels the same. I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me—he hates me as well, and I don’t know what we can do to fix it—if we can do anything at all.”

More than anything, Zelda would have loved to be able to offer up an answer to the problem, to hand it in with two lines marking the answer the way she had been able to in school. But she couldn’t. All she could do was to look over towards where Link seemed to be so engrossed in their lunch that he had yet to notice their conversation and try to keep herself from wondering whether or not it was going to be like this for the rest of the time it would take them to reach Labrynna and hope that her attempt at repairing the cracks in the world around her she did not even know the origin of would not make everything worse as she reached out to take Ganondorf’s hand.

Even though she had to crane her neck to be able to look him in the eye with how close they were standing, there was something about the way he seemed to almost curl in around himself mentally that made her feel like they might not be so different after all, both in height and in their tendency to let their thoughts become pushed down until they were impossible to ignore for any longer. Before, she had been the one to let the silence between them grow, but now, it was Ganondorf and Link who seemed to both want to not let the other be pushed further away while having no idea about what to change or what to do. If nothing else, at least Zelda doubted that she would be able to make it any worse than it already was, finding a bit of courage in that fact as she gave Ganondorf’s hand a little squeeze. “Listen, if you don’t want to let this thing between the two of you grow to become even more awkward than it already is, I am sure that Link feels the same way. I mean, if you can recognise that despite the feeling that you can’t trust him, the fact that he has saved our lives once already is proof of the opposite being the case, I am sure that he can too. Besides, we have to stick together. I know that I for one would not have been able to go on, had it not been for meeting you. I am sure that he is also happy to have found us. No matter what, we can’t afford to lose sight of that.”

The fear that she might somehow have misjudged the situation and made it worse was silenced as Ganondorf sent her a soft smile. “You are probably right.”

For a second, Zelda was sure that he was going to say something else, perhaps to ask her if she wanted to talk about her family, to discuss the fact that, while he did not seem to have many reservations about discussing his past with her, all it took for her to fall silent was a single mention of her past, but the second rushed past her as Ganondorf instead turned around to join Link next to the camping stove once more.

She should have been relieved, but as Zelda watched Link send Ganondorf a tense smile as he pointed towards the can of beans in front of them, she was not entirely sure about what to think.

+++

They reached Mabe Village that Friday evening.

Walking through the empty streets, Zelda found that she had been wrong when she had thought that it was the idea of walking into yet another city itself that had scared her, for that was not the reason at all. Instead, it was the feeling that there should have been noise, the deep, unsettling sense of there being something seriously wrong with the world around her as they pushed the trolley over the asphalt of the road that had come to replace the almost familiar dust of the gravel roads, that truly made her feel like giving up and give in to the despair.

Hyrule Castle Town had been horrible on its own, but it was not until she found herself standing between rows of houses that bore the same look of continues decay that Zelda realised that, if nothing else, back in Hyrule Castle Town, she had at least been able to convince herself that the thing that really made it all hurt, the fact that cut through her like a knife if she were to dwell on it for too long, was the fact that she had known the people in the houses, that as the capital and the largest city in Hyrule, she was surely in the one place that had suffered the most deaths during the outbreak. The realisation that she had been wrong felt like more than just a slap in the face, instead greeting her in waves, Zelda alternating between barely being able to convince herself that she had made peace with the fact that they were back in a city again and knowing that the sight of her surroundings proved her wrong.

It was always something small that brought it back, and perhaps that was the worst part of it. If she could blame the sting of tears on something as tangible as the fact that she knew without a shadow of a doubt that the three of them were the only living people to have existed inside the city for weeks, at least she would have a reason, something to focus the sadness on. But instead, it was the sight of a tricycle having been turned onto its side next to the kerb that made her have to stop for a moment, hiding her attempts at wiping the tears away by bowing her head to let her hair shield her from the rest of the group.

They had to continue, Zelda knew that, but that did not change the fact that she felt like she had aged a lifetime by the time they made it deeper into the city, the residential area thankfully giving way to the familiar sight of shops and the occasional patch of grass that had perhaps been meant to make it all look a bit more lively but now only served to highlight the fact that there was no one left, the weeds having overtaken most of the ground, slowly spreading across the pavement now that there was no longer anyone there to fight it.

Above them, Zelda saw how the sun began its descent, the buildings around them blocking the remaining sunlight long before the sun had fully disappeared behind the horizon, leaving them in what was not quite darkness but also nowhere near the usual level of light that Zelda had been used to experiencing in the evening while living in Hyrule Castle Town.

In the end, it was Link who was the first of them to pinpoint the source of the unsettling change, keeping his voice no louder than a careful whisper as he spoke. “Look. The street lamps aren’t on. ” pointing towards the dark light next to the road, he made it seem so obvious.

Perhaps it should have been. After all, as Zelda found herself looking back at the road behind them, she could not believe that she had been able to miss the rows of unlit streetlamps. Now that she was aware of it, the lack of light felt almost like its own presence, like the lack of functioning streetlights was as much of an object as the lights themselves were.

They all stood there for a moment, none of them saying anything. Zelda could only try to guess what Ganondorf and Link were thinking, but as she looked towards the nearest streetlight, the memory of how Urbosa had pointed towards the ones outside the window of her living room back when she had still been scared of the dark surfacing in her mind, disobeying every intent behind her attempts at keeping the memories at bay, she found that she could not even bring herself to do that much. For all she cared, they could all remain there for the rest of time. With the rest of the world gone, it was not like there was anyone out there who would tell them that they had to hurry up, that they had to try better, do better, be better, if they wished to have a future. There was nothing, no internal debate over whether or not any outburst would end up reaching her father’s ears, no one who could look at her with a disapproving glare and tell her that there were rumours about her, and yet, as she stood there, the only feeling that announced its arrival in response to the dead city was one of complete and utter numbness.

She would perhaps have stayed there, lost to the world and herself, had it not been for Ganondorf clearing his throat behind her.

Twirling around, feeling how the sole of her right shoe scraped against the asphalt, Zelda did not miss the way Ganondorf sent Link a hesitant look before nodding. “Yeah, they aren’t. It’s weird, isn’t it?” though he did bother to at least make an attempt at hiding it, with the way he took a step in Link’s direction, it could hardly have been more obvious that he was not as much trying to get their opinions on the issue as he was trying to make an effort at reaching out.

It should have hurt, should have been accompanied by a rising fear that she was going to be left behind again, but the sense of numbness was so all-encompassing that not even the sight of Ganondorf outright walking away from her was enough to break through it, instead leaving her to wordlessly look at everything that unfolded in front of her, even the exhaustion of having tried her best to understand the issue between the two having to yield to the numb feeling Zelda already knew should not be as big of a relief as it felt like it was.

If Link was annoyed by the gesture, he hid it well, staying where he was as Ganondorf continued to walk towards him. Only as Ganondorf stopped next to him did he move, and even then, it was only to motion towards the unlit lightbulb. “It is. I mean, I guess I should have known that it would happen, with no one being there to man the power stations and everything, but still… it feels almost wrong to be here without the light even though I was used to there not being much artificial lighting at night back in Akkala.”

“I don’t think that it is necessarily about being used to something different.” even through the numbness, Zelda could still feel the relief that radiated off of Ganondorf as Link meet him halfway between whatever the source of their initial hostility had been and the fact that they might be the last people still alive in the world, his voice rising a bit as he continued. “Or at least I thought that it was weird too.”

For a moment, no one said anything, and as much as Zelda tried to remain present, fought her best to pay attention to what was going on right in front of her rather than to try to take in and handle the fact that if she were to jump up into the air and scream for all she was worth, the only people who would ever know about it were already standing right in front of her, she found her that her thoughts could not be contained so easily.

They had gone into the city, pushing a trolley filled to the brim with food, water, things they had pieced together from different set of camping equipment, and the axe whose blade caught what little light was still able to reach them down there among the tall buildings, but there was no one who would ever question it, no one who would take a single look at the axe and put a safe distance between themselves and the group of people who looked like they had stayed outside for days. No one was there and no one would ever come.

It was the sound of Link letting out a barking laugh that pulled her back to reality, the sound of honest amusement feeling even more out of place than the lack of lighting.

“I’m sorry!” covering his mouth with both hands, Link looked horrified at the sound he had produced. “I know that it is not funny at all, but I just… I could not help but think about how dumb we would have looked if we had walked in here and the streetlights had been on.”

Exchanging a look with Ganondorf, Zelda was relieved to see that he looked just as confused as she was.

“Uh.” gripping onto his unzipped jacket, pulling each side closer around him, Ganondorf frowned slightly, his expression bearing every trace of being carefully controlled to keep the tension from being able to creep back into the cold night air. “I am not sure I understand.”

Letting his hands fall back to rest against his side, Link shook his head. “It was also just a thought, but I was just thinking that if there was still functioning cores here, then we would not have to restrict the amount of times we look at the map to try to stretch out the amount of power still left on Zelda’s Sheikah Slate. I mean, I don’t know about you, but living on a ranch that was kind of in the middle of nothing, it was almost required of me to have a map downloaded onto my phone, so if we were just able to charge our phones, then,” Link made a nonchalant gesture, “there goes the need for us to be careful with Zelda’s phone.”

Zelda had just opened her mouth to tell him that, for as long as they were still able to come across cores that did not sit in cars that had been left to tick over, they did not have to worry about the core losing energy, when she noticed several things at once.

Firstly, Link had moved, not towards her, not towards the phone he was talking about, but instead towards Ganondorf, not even the darkness being enough to hide the way a number of emotions flickered across his face before finally leaving behind a deep line between his brows and a confused expression in his eyes as he seemed torn between reaching out to place his hand on Ganondorf’s shoulder and staying still. But that first realisation was easily drowned out by the second, Zelda sensing how the world slowed down around her as she followed Link’s line of sight, vaguely aware of a sound that could perhaps have been sniffling if she had not known that it would not be the case, only to find that she was wrong.

Ganondorf was crying. It was not the all-out sobs that Zelda might once have expected to find herself succumbing to in a world that had lost all meaning, but as she looked at him standing there, the way he held his hands in front of his face in a clear attempt at hiding his tears for them, the quiet sound of muffled crying felt almost worse than even the most dramatic breakdown.

He was crying. It did not make any sense, and as Zelda stood there, at a loss for words, it was only because she kept repeating that fact to herself without the world shifting around her to let her know that she had been wrong, that there had been some kind of misunderstanding, that she knew that it was real, that she was not imagining things. Ganondorf, the one person who had always seemed to be ready to try to talk about things, who had forgiven her for the long hours of silence that had punctuated most of their first days together, always seemed to be able to maintain at least a little bit of hope in the face of what was, all things considered, a hopeless situation, was crying.

If it had been different, if she had been the one to cry, if she had found herself able to muster up any emotion that was not the deep sense of numbness in response to the city around them, Zelda knew that Ganondorf would have been at her side the instant he noticed, not trying to push the issue, but also not leaving her alone with it either. But now, here they were, and Ganondorf was the one who was trying to wipe away the tears that kept on coming, part of Zelda screaming at her to move, to do something, anything, other than just standing there and look at him without saying a word, and another part still struggling to make sense of what was happening.

So she stayed. It felt like a betrayal to just stand there and watch as Ganondorf clearly tried to regain control over his breathing, only for the rhythm of inhaling and exhaling to be disturbed by another stifled sob, instead looking towards where Link had frozen in place, a few paces still separating him from Ganondorf.

Maybe he felt that she was looking at him, for the moment what little of her thoughts that were not focused on Ganondorf shifted towards him, Link looked over at her, meeting her gaze with the mixture of sadness, horror, and panic evident in every line on his face.

The fact that he was clearly not going to be the one to let the silence be interrupted by more than just the sound of Ganondorf crying was what finally forced Zelda to move.

Feeling every bit like someone who was facing a task they knew they would fail before they had even begun, asking themselves the question of how to best reduce the damage rather than how to approach it, Zelda moved over to place her hand on Ganondorf’s elbow, only for her courage to fail her at the last moment, leaving her to face what, while being a matter of a few centimetres, felt like an unbridgeable gap between her intentions and her actions.

It was not that she had expected for him not to notice her, but the way he looked down at her a moment later was still enough to catch her off guard, all thoughts about having to treat the reason for his tears with the tact that the reality around them required leaving her mind, instead allowing the question that had come to fill her thoughts at the idea of Ganondorf crying in front of them to take their place.

But then, like water breaking through a dam to fill a lower reservoir, Zelda regained the ability to move, finding herself finishing the thought by actually placing her hand on Ganondorf’s arm.

He did not react. As much as Zelda tried to convince herself that it was a good sign, that, at the very least, him not running away or retreating even further into his own mind like she would undoubtedly have done was a positive reaction, she did not miss the distant look in his eyes, making it appear like he had yet to even notice her presence as she rubbed a little circle into his arm.

“Ganondorf?” Zelda heard her tone of voice rise with each syllable, becoming progressively more and more uncertain in sound as she forced herself not to listen to the voice whispering to stop while she had at least not got the chance to make it all worse. “Are… is there anything we can do? Something to… something to let us help you?” she barely caught herself before she would have asked if there was anything wrong, if there was anything they could do to help. Of course there was something wrong; the entire world had died around them, leaving them stranded in an unknown city filled to the brim with death, and of course there was nothing they could do to help, nothing for her to say or do that could possibly take away that fact, Zelda instead switching out the words for something that, while not sounding any less useless and hollow against the backdrop of silence around them, at least did not also bring his attention to the fact that, for as much as they might pretend that the opposite was the case, as much as Zelda might have tried to convince herself that there could be a chance for them in Labrynna to keep him from noticing her doubts, now, the world had truly become little more than a farce around them as they tried to keep on moving forwards.

Zelda felt the silence almost as a set of walls closing in around her, the only sign that Ganondorf had even heard her at all being the way he looked up at her, the angle making it all too clear that his eyes were red with tears as he slowly shook his head.

“No, it’s all right,” Ganondorf said, tears still escaping his attempts at denying their existence to roll down his cheeks, “you don’t have to do anything, I just—I just need a moment to pull myself together and then—”

She noticed his knees buckling below him a moment before it would have been too late. Wrapping an arm around him, Zelda held onto his hand, struggling to keep both of them upright as all energy seemingly left him, his full weight tipping to the side to rest on her as Zelda gritted her teeth while fighting not to continue the motion of being about to fall to the floor.

Then, just as quickly as she had got his full weight on her shoulders, it was lifted away again.

There was only one possible explanation for that, but as Zelda looked up from the ground and saw that Link had moved over to hold onto Ganondorf as well, sending her a strained smile as he was seemingly able to easily hold up Ganondorf, there was still something unreal about it. However, in that moment, as long as it would not turn out to have been wishful thinking, Zelda would have accepted any source of help, so rather than trying to rub her eyes like he was a mirage that would disappear, she nodded towards the pavement below their feet.

Between the two of them, they were able to lower Ganondorf to the ground without any mishaps, Zelda hesitating for another moment to let go of him before kneeling down to join both of them on the rough surface of the flagstones.

Ganondorf did not look over at her, and had it not been for how he pulled his knees towards his chest, wrapping his arms around himself, Zelda would have doubted that he had noticed that he had been moved at all.

“I…” with his hand hovering above Ganondorf’s shoulder, just a couple of centimetres of air to separate them, Link’s hesitation to reach out could hardly have been any more obvious. Still, as Zelda waited, the sound of her heartbeat growing in her chest, Link clenched his jaw, a look of steely determination overtaking the hesitation in his eyes as he lowered his hand to finally make contact. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

But Ganondorf only shook his head. “No, it’s not your fault—it’s not any of you two’s fault. It’s just—” the words were interrupted by his own sobs, but as Zelda sat there, silently listening as something seemingly broke down to let the words pour out, she knew that she would never have missed a single one. “My sister, I—I haven’t even told you about her, but I had a sister, Riju, and she—she—” the words were drowned out by the sound of crying, Ganondorf leaning down to rest his forehead against his knees.

In the silence that followed, there was no need for him to finish the sentence.

A sister.

A sister who was the reason he was sitting there, in the middle of a deserted city, crying so much that he could hardly speak. It did not take a genius to figure out what had happened to the sister. Zelda could see the same realisation echoed in the horror spreading across Link’s face, something almost akin to surprise making its way into his expression, his gaze flickering from Ganondorf to Zelda, completely replacing the determination that had been there only a few moments ago.

A second later, Zelda saw that she had been wrong, a bit too quick to assume what another person’s feelings were, as Link, rather than retreating back into silence to free himself from having to once again try to mitigate a situation that Zelda could not see an end to, a ruined world and the loss of hope not being something that had any easy answer, patted Ganondorf’s shoulder. “You have a sister?”

“Had a sister.” watching Ganondorf wipe away the tears to look up at Link, Zelda did not miss how the oddly calm behaviour appeared in an instant, Ganondorf’s voice becoming less shaky as he corrected the mistake. She was not nearly optimistic enough to believe for even a second that it could be a good thing, a feeling that only grew as Ganondorf repeated himself once more. “I had a sister. Riju. She… I know that she is dead, so please don’t try to tell me otherwise. I… after everything happened and I had to leave my dorm to get away from the smell, I went home and… there she was. She was just lying on the floor in the living room like she had not even got the chance to realise that there was something seriously wrong before it was too late. She was just lying there, completely alone, and I had let it happen. I should have come home from university to look after her when my aunts left for Labrynna, but I didn’t. I just let her be all alone as she died. I moved her away from the floor, left her in her bed, but it still doesn’t change the fact that there was no one there to hold her hand and assure her that everything would be all right when it happened” it sounded almost like he was speaking to himself rather than to them as he whispered the last sentence, like she was listening to a conversation that had never been meant for her to hear.

The memory of the sand seal cuddly toy flashed in front of her eyes, and if Zelda had been able to look away as Ganondorf once again tried to dry his eyes to instead look towards the trolley, she was sure that she would have seen it through the layers of tinned food and the plastic bag she had wrapped around it, the collar of the shirt she had borrowed from Ganondorf suddenly feeling too restrictive, like the fabric was rising up to cover more of her throat before tightening with the realisation that it fit her too well to have belonged to Ganondorf.

Zelda doubted she would have been able to say anything even if she had wanted to, all words leaving her mind, the only thing left behind being the overwhelming realisation that, perhaps, there really was nothing left for her to do.

However, where she might have found herself frozen in place, Link, if anything, seemed like he found more energy with every word, moving slightly to the side to bring himself directly in front of Ganondorf. Zelda saw the reason a moment later as Ganondorf looked away from his hands for a fraction of a second, only to look directly at Link.

Maybe he saw something that Zelda could not see; perhaps she was standing in a spot that did not allow her to fully comprehend what was happening, but rather than tearing his gaze away to once again lose himself to his thoughts, Ganondorf continued to look straight ahead, not once taking his eyes off Link as Link slowly began to speak again.

“I… I know that you don’t have any reason to believe me, but trust me, I know what you are going through. Back at the ranch—I wasn’t there when it all happened as well, having gone swimming, so once I broke through the surface of the water, it felt like I had entered an entirely different world, one where everything was quiet and everyone had left me. And do you know what I did? I ran. I didn’t even bother to pack anything or to go back home to make sure that that there really wasn’t anyone there who might have made it, I just ran without looking back. I left everyone behind because I was too scared to take away the last bit of hope that someone might have survived, so listen to me when I tell you that it is not your fault and that I am sure your sister would have been happy to know that you went back home to her.”

He had fled. It was not important, not in the grand scheme of things, not as they stood there, all three of them trying to find the strength to get back up and continue their journey, but try as she might, there was something about the idea of Link turning around to leave his home behind that she could not fit in next to the memory of the man who had appeared from out of nowhere, running away from the safety of the forest to place himself between their imminent deaths and a bear.

She knew that she lacked the ability to comprehend the full extent of what Link had just said, but, perhaps, from where Ganondorf was sitting, it all made sense, or at least he slowly stopped crying, the tears instead replaced by a slight crease between his brows as he looked up at Link, an unreadable expression in his eyes. “Thank you.” the sound of his voice was barely audible in the wake of his sobs, but Zelda still heard them, and from the way his eyes widened, so did Link. “Both of you. Thank you. I… I don’t know what—why I… but thank you for waiting.”

Link did not give Zelda a chance to respond, having already moved to stand up again, proffering his hand. “You don’t have to explain it. I know what it’s like to miss the people we lost.”

Letting Link pull him to his feet, Ganondorf turned to Zelda. She had known that she did not understand, had almost come to accept the fact that, for as much as she could try to guess what had changed between the two of them during the seconds of silence and indecipherable glances, she would never fully understand it, but even then, there was something about the way Ganondorf stood there, seeming almost like he had to force himself to send her an apologetic nod, that further strengthened the feeling of having been left out of something. It was not a thing she could name, not something she could point at and declare that there, that was the reason she had not understood and had instead been left to stand next to them, but it was there nonetheless as Ganondorf visibly made an effort at forcing himself to relax, his shoulders sinking and fists unclenching as he looked back over at Link once again.

“You’re right. If she had been here, Riju would have been glad that I went back home. I just wish that that did not have to be my last memory of her.”

An expression Zelda did not know what to think of passed over Link’s face, his eyes darkening for a moment. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind the same sense of there being something between them that she had not understood as Link took a step forwards. “I think we all wish we had known that this would happen, knowing that we would have acted differently the last time we saw them if that had been the case.”

Ganondorf looked at him, something that appeared to belong at a point between relief and melancholy settling into his expression as Zelda was left to wonder if she could even fully remember the last interaction she had had with her father. There had been the hours of frantically trying to figure out what was wrong, of trying to appeal to the hospital and her own rapidly crumbling belief that the government would take action, that there had to be someone out there who would come in to move the burden away from her shoulders as the world rapidly descended into silence with the lines no longer working. Of course there had been the moments of paralysing fear, the seconds where she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his voice grew thinner and thinner every time she tried to get him to describe his symptoms until it died completely, taking with it her hope that it would be something minor, perhaps a cold that could be treated with a bit of tea. But none of that had been anything she would describe as a conversation, not when it had seemed closer to a race against time with her father being both a competitor and a passive onlooker, leaving Zelda to rush between the kitchen and the bedroom.

It felt wrong to even think the thought, to look over at Ganondorf’s tearstained cheeks and envy him that he could miss his sister while feeling nothing but grief, and yet, Zelda could not ignore the feeling of jealousy as she struggled to recall a memory of any last interaction that would fit in next to stories of how they had failed to really tell the people around them how much they loved them that Ganondorf and Link would undoubtedly have told her if she had been able to bring herself to ask.

She should have had no space left to feel anything other than pity, but as Ganondorf cleared his throat, his voice still thick with tears, Zelda was grateful for the distraction from her own thoughts he provided her with.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I know that I can’t, but if I could go back in time, I would have made sure to tell her just how much I loved her.” it did not feel like a relief as he finally looked over at her again, acknowledging her presence, not at all, especially not as Zelda saw the apology written across his face long before Ganondorf began to explain himself again. “I’m sorry that I just completely broke down like that. It’s just…” with how he made a vague gesture in no particular direction, it would not have surprised Zelda if he meant the entire world in general, but after a moment of seemingly searching for the right words to describe what had just happened, Ganondorf ended up nodding towards the unlit streetlamp, “with all this talk about everything we could have done with the use of cores, it just brought back the memory of her and how many pictures I must have taken of her over the years that are now also gone with my Sheikah Slate being dead.”

The idea formed in an instant, barely giving Zelda enough time to think things through, to try to gauge whether or not she would risk making the wound even deeper as it forced its way into the world, being uttered almost without her realising it. “If you want, I can redirect the energy from one of the cars to your phone. I know that it would not fix anything, but it would give you the pictures back.”

A myriad of expressions, most of them lasting for little more than a fraction of a second, some looking like they moved to occupy a spot next to where they were standing, appeared in Ganondorf’s eyes as he looked over at her, looking at once like he wanted nothing more than to accept the offer and like he was waiting for it to be taken away from him again.

“I… I—you would really do that?”

By all means, Zelda should have felt hurt that he doubted her, should have looked back on every moment they had spent in each other’s presence to try to find the action that could have led him to believe that she would not have offered to bring back everything that had been stored on his phone if he had only brought up the issue, that, even though she had a way of powering her own phone, she would not have been willing to share the secret with him. But as she stood there, feeling how the Sheikah Slate pulled down at the fabric of the borrowed shirt, the alternatingly green and red striped of the plaid glaringly loud in the darkness of the city, all that was left inside her was the overwhelming joy of finally being able to help with something.

“Of course I will.”

He did not look convinced, and as much as she wanted to remain neutral, wanted to at least be able to not give in to the temptation to sit down, give up, and cry as well, Zelda felt how the passage of the seconds slowed down in the time it took for Ganondorf to nod and reach into the pockets of his trousers to slowly, ever so slowly, pull out a Sheikah Slate.

The screen was cracked, the long lines that spread out over it speaking of a weight having suddenly been placed on top of it, the moment of terrified compliance that had followed Link appearing from out of the forest instantly coming to mind as Ganondorf held out the phone towards her. “Here,” he said, his hand shaking, “I…” the sentence was left to trail off into nothingness as Zelda took the phone, careful to get a good grip around it before moving back, away from Ganondorf, Link, and the looks they sent her as she took in the condition of the phone.

For as damaged as the cracks in the screen made it look, it was nothing that would interfere with an attempt at transferring energy to its core. Though the screen might have been broken, with how the back of it was still intact, Zelda managing to wrench off the cover to reveal its inner structure, the core being completely dead, not even a faint blue glow rising from it to illuminate what she had to work with, the parts of it that really mattered could still be saved.

Acutely aware of the fact that both Ganondorf and Link were watching her, the doubt in Ganondorf’s eyes still burnt into her mind, Zelda looked up, her gaze instantly drifting to the car they had just passed. With how it had been parked by the kerb, the dark windows not allowing her to catch even a fleeting glimpse of the inside, Zelda was as close to being certain that it had not been left in a tick-over state when everything had come to an end as she could be, but the few seconds it took her to walk over to it and pull up the bonnet to reveal the gentle glow of the functional core still felt like they stretched out into infinity as she struggled to hide her relief and the doubt in her own plans from the two others. She could do it. She had done it once already, having been all on her own with the knowledge that, should anything happen, should she misjudge and make a mistake, there would be no one to help her when the energy would spring directly from the core and over into her body. However, with how single glance at the core in front of her, bright and powerful, was enough to let her know that, alone or not, it would not be enough to help her if she failed, it did not do much to calm her nerves as she slowly placed the phone next to her on the ground before reaching up to unfasten her necklace.

“Wait!” perhaps he had realised the same thing, for the moment Zelda had slipped the pendant off the chain, Ganondorf was at her side, holding his hand out to stop her. It was as if he wasn’t sure whether to look at her or the core, his expression a combination of far too many emotions for her to name them as he took her hand, keeping her from moving forward with the plan. “Are you sure it’s safe—for you, I mean?”

There was no use in attempting to lie, not when Zelda was certain that he could hear the fast-paced rhythm of her heartbeat, so she did not even try. “I don’t know. I am going to try my best, but there will always be a risk that I will… that I will make a mistake here, even though I have tried it before.”

Ganondorf bit his lip, the doubt clear in his eyes. “I just… I don’t want to see you hurt just because I was crying over some pictures of my sister. That’s—that’s all.”

Link must have used their conversation to move unnoticed, for it felt like only a second had passed between when he had been metres away from them and the moment he reached out, placing a hand on Ganondorf’s shoulder to gently pull his hand away, his voice soft as he spoke. “I am sure that Zelda knows what she is doing. After all, she just said that she has done it before.” using the fact that he was hidden from Ganondorf’s gaze, Link sent Zelda a quizzical glance, silently asking her the question she had only just accepted not having an answer to.

But he was trying his best to smoothen out the initial hostility, something Zelda could appreciate even if she was also terrified at the idea that her shaking hands would bring her to make a mistake, a slight misstep as she would lower the necklace into the core, so, putting on a mask of certainty, she returned the glance with a nod that felt more unsure than what she had had in mind. “I am not going to get injured. If I was afraid of that, I would not have done this on my own in the first place. And that is not even to mention the fact that, if we want to keep the map of Lurelin Village, sooner or later, I would have had to transfer energy to my own phone anyway. Of course I am going to do the same thing for you if it can bring back your pictures.”

He did not look convinced, but at least Ganondorf let Link pull him away from her, leaving Zelda to take a couple of deep breaths to attempt to still her shaking hands as she returned to the task at hand, blocking out the outside world to leave nothing but the phone, the chain, and the core in front of her. It would be all right. She could do it.

Fastening the clasp to the core of the Sheikah Slate, Zelda assessed the car’s core. From the bright light it emitted, it was clear that her greatest worry, if she ignored the risk it would pose to herself, would be having to act fast to disconnect it from the phone before the core would be able to melt it.

The metal of the chain was cold as she held onto it for another moment, leaving the phone on the ground to instead use her left hand to grab onto her wrist, steadying her movements as she slowly lowered the chain down into the motor of the car to allow it to touch the core.

It happened far too quickly and so slowly that it felt like she had ages to react all at once.

The energy sprung from deep within the core, long threads of brilliantly blue light shooting up from the space it inhabited to move through the air, some of it returning to the core while others travelled through the metal to reach the phone, making it become incandescent within moments. Pulling back her hand, all Zelda could do to keep herself from letting out a pained yelp was to shake her hand in front of her for a moment, hoping that the fact that the pain was quick to abate was a sign that she had not been seriously hurt as she forced herself to continue counting. The phone vibrating slightly on the ground in front of her, it felt almost like it was screaming for her to remove the source of energy, but Zelda forced herself to wait for a second more before she reached out to, with the fabric of her sleeve bundled up to put as many layers between her and the white-hot metal, tear the chain of her necklace away from the core of the car.

Altogether, it could not have been a matter of more than a minute before she was once again sitting on the ground, the phone lying in front of her, the chain a few centimetres away, but with the adrenaline flowing through her veins, it felt like it had lasted for ages as Zelda finally found the strength to swallow back a victorious yell to instead push herself up from the floor, picking up the phone as she did so to, with what she hoped was a relaxed expression, hold it out for Ganondorf to take.

Only, nothing happened.

Standing there, without giving any indication that he was going to accept the phone, nor that he was about to comment on anything that had just happened, Ganondorf simply stared at her, the disbelief in his eyes battling something that carried an air not unlike fear. Next to him, Zelda could see how the same was the case with Link, the only difference being that Link seemed more focused on the phone in her hand than Ganondorf did.

She let it go on for another second before the quietness grew too heavy for her, making her feel like she was drowning as she broke through it with a nervous laugh. “Uh, guys, it went fine. I did not get hurt; there is no energy flowing through me, waiting for me to make contact with anyone to get a chance to kill them. You can take the phone now.”

The next thing she knew, Zelda had been enveloped in a bone-crushing hug, her view of the dark street around them instead replaced with the soft fabric of Ganondorf’s sweater, the proximity of the pattern of the knitted material making it difficult to focus on anything but the fact that not even the week on the road had been enough to completely remove the sense of comfort that accompanied it, making Zelda lean into the hug before she had even realised what she was doing. A moment later, the feeling of another set of arms wrapping around her told her what she already knew: that Link had joined the hug, having gone to try to embrace both of them at the same time, the fact that Zelda could feel how his left arm did not even come close to wrapping around her letting her know that he had not succeeded. But, for once, whether or not there was a success to follow an attempt did not matter. It was a hug; that was more than enough for Zelda as she let herself rest for a moment, focusing on nothing but the sensation of being able to breathe in without being aware of the underlying scent of decay. The fibres of Ganondorf’s sweater made sure to black that out as she closed her eyes, not even the fact that Ganondorf’s Sheikah Slate was pressing against her stomach, having been trapped in the middle of the embrace, being enough to disturb the little moment of peace.

From above her, Zelda could hear Ganondorf murmur a quiet thankyou into her hair before falling silent again, and even though she was sure that, just a few minutes ago, she would have felt obligated to respond with some kind of assurance that there was no need for that, Zelda found herself simply leaning further into the embrace in response to it.

Of course, that was when the sound of howling echoed through the street.

Their reaction could not have been more instantaneous if they had tried, Zelda moving back, seeing how both Ganondorf and Link mirrored her response the moment they heard the sound, her mind making the connection between the loudness of it and the word ‘danger’ in a moment.

Had it not been for the fear washing in over her, Zelda would perhaps have found it comical how both she and Ganondorf responded to the sinking realisation that the sound of the howls coming closer was a sign of animals approaching by looking over at Link, Zelda seeing the same memory of him rushing out of the forest to not only yell instructions at them, but also manage to singlehandedly chase off the bear, reflected in the way Ganondorf stepped behind Link.

Link, for his part, was quick to justify their reaction of looking to him for the answer to what they should do. Spinning around, Link wasted no time before pointing towards the building on their left, the faded number hanging above the door marking it as what was most likely a block of flats, having already halfway begun running back towards their trolley as he gave out orders. “Get inside, now! Those howls—there’s wolves nearby! I’ll be right behind you; I just have to bring the trolley along.”

In hindsight, Zelda should have known that she would be the only one to obey the commands from the moment she saw Ganondorf tear his gaze away from the door to instead look back towards where Link had just then reached the trolley, beginning to manoeuvre it around the parked cars in the street. But right in that moment, another howl rang through the street, louder than before, and as much as she wanted to stay to help, Zelda found herself sprinting towards the door Link had just marked as being the only thing separating her from safety, only faintly aware of the fact that Ganondorf was not following suit.

With her hands outstretched, Zelda closed her fist around the door handle only for her to run directly into the hard surface of the door as it refused to budge beneath her grip. Locked. It should have been obvious, and still, Zelda wasted precious seconds with trying to force the door to open, continuing to press down on the handle despite it doing absolutely nothing.

“All right,” Zelda whispered to herself, the fact that it was very much not all right waiting for her right beneath the surface with the panic to accompany the realisation, “all right, I just need to get the door open, just need to get inside, all right.”

The answer came to her along with the sound of yet another howl, this time accompanied by what she deemed to be the sound of at least two more wolves, and for once, Zelda was grateful for the fact that she had not been able to muster up the energy to do more to keep her hair clean to pretend that swimming in the lake had in any way, shape, or form resembled an actual bath, as the seconds of digging through the greasy tresses hanging in front of her face resulted in her digging out a hairpin.

With the sounds of the rest of the world fading away into an unimportant sense of knowing that she was losing time, Zelda opened up the hairpin, the metal feeling almost laughably pliant after the weeks of having had live with the knowledge that, if there was something in the way, she would have to figure out a way to lift it, sometimes making her force herself to ignore aching muscles and the knowledge that she was nowhere near strong enough to carry it on her own to do just that.

Shoving one end of the hairpin into the keyhole, Zelda tried her best to recall everything she knew about the mechanics of locks. In theory, it should be simple enough, or at least that was what it had seemed like back when they had been given a little transparent box that revealed how it was all a matter of timing and being able to retain full control over the lock picking tool, but as she stood there, hands shaking, Zelda was not sure that there could be a worse time for her to find herself forced to rely on her ability to relax. But, at last, the sound of metal moving aside, the lock springing open, filled her ears.

Without wasting another moment, letting hairpin remain hairpin in the keyhole, Zelda threw open the door, leaving the street to instead find herself in a dark stairway.

The sound of wheels against asphalt, punctuated by mumbled curses and a worried exclamation, preceded the moment Zelda could breathe freely again, Ganondorf and Link finally reaching the door, the trolley pushed in front of them at a breakneck speed that almost saw it rush right past the designated door, Ganondorf barely managing to stop it by holding onto the handle as he dug his feet into the ground.

Zelda, for her part, responded by throwing open the door, standing between it and the doorway to keep it from closing, the guilt feeling like a physical presence around her as she looked back at the two others, trying to gauge whether or not it would be better to head back out to help .

Moving almost as if in slow-motion, the trolley finally stopped the last moment before manoeuvring it into the stairway would have required for them to turn it around, Link gesturing frantically for Zelda to move as they, no doubt fuelled by an abundance of adrenaline, managed to lift up the trolley to get it over the doorstep and into the relative safety that having a door between them and the wolves, should it turn out that they were indeed heading their way, provided.

The door fell shut behind them.

With the lack of both natural and artificial lighting, standing there in the stairway did not make it any harder to make out her surroundings than it would have been outside. Still, with her heart feeling like it had been about to escape from its spot within her chest, Zelda would have been lying if she had tried to claim that she was able to take in anything about it other than the strong smell of rot that seemed to rise up from every surface, clinging to the air she breathed in as they all waited for the sounds to come closer.

And they did.

It could hardly have been more than half a minute since their frantic escape from their exposed position in the streets when a flash of something grey flashed outside, Zelda at once acutely aware of how all that separated her from it was the wooden door in front of her but leaning up against it all the same, looking out of the little window towards the top to catch another glimpse of the animal. She did not have to wait long for that to happen, another flash of grey soon filling her field of vision, and this time, Zelda saw the wolf itself rather than just the grey colour of its fur.

The wolf was large, far larger than she had expected. As much as the schoolbooks and every documentary on wild animals might have tried to let her know that that was not the case, it was not until she found herself only a few metres away from the animal that Zelda fully realised that she had been wrong to imagine it as being the size of a slighter larger than average dog. Though by no means gigantic, the wolves outside were large enough that Zelda had no doubt about how a possible confrontation with them would have gone.

The next moment, the wolves had passed, perhaps to chase after some poor animal that had been left outside.

She had not noticed how Link had moved until he was practically standing right next to her. Looking out of the window, he too leant against the door, but where Zelda was sure that the others would see fear and the pale face of someone who was trying to come to terms with the fact that the wolves were still very much out there somewhere and would continue to remain a threat to them for the rest of the journey to Lurelin Village if they were to look at her, when she looked at Link, the one thing that struck her about his expression was how drawn to the animals he seemed.

Drawn. That was the only word Zelda had for the way he continued to look in the direction of where the wolves had finally turned around a corner, the little sigh he let out being low enough that, had it not been for the fact that she was standing right next to him, Zelda doubted she would have noted it.

However, by the time she had regained the ability to speak, having just opened her mouth to ask what he was thinking, if he was all right, anything at all, the moment had passed and, with it, the glimmer of longing in Link’s eyes as he, almost like he only then noticed her, reached out towards her, hesitating before putting an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry about them. We passed a zoo when walking through the city. They probably escaped from there after everyone meant to inspect the enclosures and provide them with food died. This is probably the place with the highest concentration of wild animals in one place.”

“I am not worried,” Zelda said, only for a tremble in her voice and her shaking shoulders to instantly prove her wrong, rendering both her fight to keep her voice steely and determined as well as the battle not to give in to the guilt of having fled and left the others behind unwinnable in an instant.

At least Link was kind enough not to comment on it, merely tilting his head for a moment before letting go of her to dig through his pockets. Even without any lighting, the chain flashed as he pulled it out, handing it to her without a word, Zelda unable to do more than to watch as he placed the necklace in her hand, closing her fingers around it before leaving her to stand by the door as he headed deeper into the stairway. Granted, with the fact that the room they had found themselves in could barely be more than a couple of metres wide and perhaps twice as deep, it was not that far away, but as Zelda struggled to close the clasp, twirling around in an attempt at forcing the chain to become long enough to let her hold it up in front of her face, only to see Link sit down next to Ganondorf on the bottom steps of the staircase, she could not find the energy to try to fend off the feeling of having been left behind even within the confines of the tiny stairway.

They weren’t fighting, weren’t sending each other looks that spoke of a kind of animosity between them that she would never be able to understand. By all means, seeing Link hesitate to move closer to Ganondorf for a moment, only for Ganondorf to move towards him, the two of them sitting next to each other between the wall and the banisters, the empty space on either side of them being just barely too narrow to allow her to go join them, should have been a relief, and yet, as she finally succeeded in putting the necklace back on, the bird-like pendant falling to lie as a weight against her chest, the fact that there was no space for her to join them was all Zelda could see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we see a bit more of the struggles of travelling in a group of three rather than two.


	8. Chapter 8

The imminent threat of wolves might have passed, but as the seconds became minutes, the minutes soon reaching an hour, it became clear that neither of them wanted to be the one to bring up the fact that every second they spent sitting inside the stairway was another second they could have used to bring themselves just a bit closer to Lurelin Village before exhaustion would truly have been able to justify stopping to rest.

By the time Link rose from his spot on the steps of the staircase to instead dig through their supplies, mumbling to himself, Zelda had to accept that it was not a case of it appearing like they were no longer in a hurry to reach Lurelin Village; it was a fact that Ganondorf and Link seemed to have decided that they would have to stay there.

Perhaps she should have protested, should have insisted for them to go back outside to put as much distance between themselves and the city along with the zoological garden Link had named as the past home of the wolves, but Zelda could not bring herself to break through the silence. Besides, what would she even have said to convince them? Have tried to remind Ganondorf of the fact that he was the one who wanted to reach Lurelin Village, the one who had suggested the idea of being able to cross Faron Sea by boat in the first place? Zelda shuddered just thinking the thought. She could wish to leave Mabe behind for the rest of her life, and she would still not have been able to bring herself to remind Ganondorf of the fact that they were all clinging to the hope that his aunts might still be alive, not as he sat there, clutching his phone like it was something that far outweighed all of their supplies in its value, his eyes still red with tears but a small smile slowly beginning to tug at the muscles around his mouth. If staying there for the night was what would be able to let him forget about everything that had happened to bring them there, Zelda would have tried to force herself not to think about the risk of the wolves retuning a thousand times to make it so.

It was the sound of tins clanking against one another that tore her away from her thoughts, Zelda spinning around, only to see Link raising his hands in an apologetic gesture, one of them currently holding onto a can.

“Sorry,” he whispered, the sound echoing in the metres of space above them, “I was just trying to find something for us to eat.”

Eat. It took a moment before Zelda remembered that there was still a need for them to eat. After everything that had happened in only a day, after having tried her best to pretend that she was not risking electrocution, only to then be chased away from the streets by a pack of wolves, having to actually break into a block of flats to escape, the idea of eating felt almost too mundane for her to give it a thought. But where she found it odd to think that she still had to eat, with how he continued to dig through their supplies, holding up different types of tinned food, not even the lack of light being enough to keep him from bringing it up near his eyes to attempt to compare the different cans, if anything, Link was giving it more attention than ever.

“Guys.” looking up from the can that seemed to have qualified as the best one, Link’s gaze flickered from Ganondorf to Zelda. “Do you think that it would be safe to use the camping stove in here?”

A cursory glance at what looked like an example of a truly ancient staircase in front of them, Zelda noting the way the wood seemed to have both faded and changed colour in some places, was enough for her to make her decision.

“No,” Zelda said, “I think it would be better to just eat it cold.”

“Oh.” the disappointment was apparent in Link’s voice, but at least he did not try to argue against her, instead returning to the task of digging through the contents of their trolley.

Had she had even the slightest bit of energy left, Zelda wanted to believed that she would have moved over to help him, that she would have asked him what he was looking for, using it as a chance to actually try to speak to him for more than just the few seconds it took to agree on what direction they would have to take to follow the crudely drawn path on their map. But she could not even bring herself to move away from the door, instead feeling how her legs gave up beneath her weight, letting her sink to the floor as she watched Link emerge from the depths of the trolley, holding two empty cans.

There had to be an explanation for it all. As she sat there, watching Link divide the contents of the tin between the empty containers, the thick consistency and brown colour of its contents revealing it to be beans, Zelda was not even sure what exactly it was that she wanted to possess the answers to. After all, it had been weeks since the world had last made sense, since her biggest worry was the fact that she would soon have to figure out what she wanted to do, where to go after finishing school. And now, here she was, sitting inside a stairway she had no right to be in, a trolley full of stolen goods having lasted them the week it had taken them to get this far, at once acutely aware of the fact that, really, she did not know much about her companions but also knowing that had it not been for them, she would not have been able to make it this far. Really, there was no reason for her to break down over it now, not if she had been able to keep it together for this long, and still, the only thing Zelda could bring herself to do as Link moved back into her field of vision, the sound of him offering her a portion of the meal he had prepared sounding like she was underwater, Link repeating himself another time before simply shoving the can into her grasp, was to look over at Ganondorf, the feeling that she was only then truly seeing him so loud in her mind that she could not focus on anything but that.

He was still sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, his height forcing him to pulls his legs up towards himself to keep himself from taking up all the space in front of him. But as she looked up at Ganondorf’s face, Zelda doubted that it was a conscious decision that had made him sit that way, for he looked utterly lost in the Sheikah Slate in his hands, the slight movement of his thumb from time to time letting her know that he was looking through the pictures of Riju.

A sister. In hindsight, Zelda could not believe that she had not guessed it, that she had not looked at the shirt she was wearing and the cuddly toy Ganondorf had seemed oddly attached to and realised that there was more to it than it merely being the memory of the world that had disappeared. But she hadn’t. She had been alone, a person had appeared when she had needed company the most, and Zelda had never stopped to even consider for a moment the fact that the little details did not add up. And now here she was, unsure of whether or not she should apologise for having been far too absorbed by her own problems to give his a second thought, if that was something to apologise for. It was not a matter of trying to figure out what she would have done before the world had shifted, whether to apologise or forget, not when the issue of one of the only people still left in the world having lost his sister along with everyone else would never have arisen back then. There was no guidance, no way to tell whether or not mentioning her or trying to bring up the fact that, had she known, she would have returned his attempts at getting her to talk about her family and let their conversations extend to his sister as well, would bring him any happiness.

She hadn’t known. Zelda had accepted the shirt, had failed to notice the fact that it would never have fitted him, being far too small for that, far too comfortable on her, and had instead gone on with her life while keeping herself blissfully ignorant.

In the end, it was Link who was the first to, seemingly without realising that Zelda had spent the last several minutes trying to do just that, bring an end to the tense silence. Shoving a can of beans, the smell not doing much to chase away the underlying message of the decay that was taking place perhaps only a few metres away from them, towards Ganondorf, waiting for a moment before it registered in his mind, Ganondorf looking back and forth between his Sheikah Slate and the meal for a moment before putting the phone back into his pocket to accept the bowl without a word, Link once again took back his seat next to him, bit his lip and looked over at Zelda. “I think,” he said, stabbing at the contents of his own can with a spoon without eating what he caught, “that it will be best for us to stay here for the night.”

It was what she had expected for him to say, and yet, Zelda could hear the barely hidden disappointment in her voice. “You really think that is necessary.”

Shooting a glance in Ganondorf’s direction, Ganondorf repaying it with a shadow of a smile that failed to fully reach his eyes, Link bowed his head. “I do. The wolves—I doubt that they are going to come back, but I still wouldn’t mind giving them the chance to put even more distance between their pack and us before we head back outside again. I mean, who knows what would have happened had it not been for the fact that we had hiding places all around us and someone who was able to pick the lock to let us take advantage of that. Speaking of which,” Link used the spoon to point at her, a bit of the sauce that had come with the beans dripping onto the floor, “where did you learn that? Is it just some cool thing I would have been taught if I had been living in the city? What do you say, Ganondorf, is that the reason people move to the city—to learn how to pick locks?”

Zelda could see what he was doing, leaning a bit towards Ganondorf as he spoke, forcing him to stop fidgeting with his pocket and phone to instead direct his attention towards him. And, from what she could see, it had the intended effect, or at least Ganondorf raised his head, a look of confusion settling across his face for a moment before it gave way to a chortle, Ganondorf shaking his head. “No, I can’t say that there ever was a teacher who sat me down to teach me that important life skill.”

“Hmm,” stroking his chin, Link put on a mask of being deep in thought, “seems like it is a Hyrule Castle Town thing then, huh, Zelda?”

“I suppose so.” she had not meant to sound so snappy, but as the way Link went quiet revealed that her intentions did not matter for his perception of it, Zelda let out a sigh under her breath and continued. “It wasn’t really something we were supposed to learn either, just the result of having a physics teacher who was very much in favour of the concept of us gaining an understanding of the world by interacting with it. If you think that it is wild that she taught us how to pick locks, just wait until I get the chance to tell you the story of that one time where she honestly thought that we would be able to build a phone from scratch for a project.”

It took her a moment too long to realise that she had just delivered Link the perfect way to take Ganondorf’s thoughts away from the phone on a silver platter, and by then, it was too late to take it back, Link already leaning forwards, his eyebrows shooting up as he nudged Ganondorf in the side. “Zelda, you can’t just say something like that and then not tell the full story, especially not when you have all the time in the world right now to tell us about it! Come on, Ganondorf, tell her that I am right!”

He was using the fact that they both knew exactly what was going through Ganondorf’s mind when he would look away against her. Zelda knew that, and still, as Ganondorf sent her an apologetic glance before voicing his agreement, she could not keep herself from smiling, especially not as Link moved a bit to the side, patting the spot next to him on the step, everything about his behaviour making it seem like he was honestly intrigued by her story, interested in it even beyond the distraction from the situation it could provide.

Knowing that she had already failed to hide the slight chuckle that climbed up her throat to make itself heard, Zelda went over to join him, sitting down on the step and feeling how the wooden planks creaked ominously beneath their combined weight.

“All right, so, back during my second year—and, no, I don’t know exactly how it came to be so, but I guess that someone must have been on their phone during class. Anyway, my teacher, Purah—rather than confiscating the phone, she just looked at him for a moment before turning around to leave the classroom.” if she closed her eyes, Zelda was sure that she would have been able to picture the way Purah’s face had lit up as she jumped from her seat, disappearing through the door before anyone got the chance to truly take in what was happening, before they would have been able to ask her what she was doing or when she would be back, so she made sure not to. As much as Purah was perhaps the one person Zelda could believe would be stubborn enough to stay alive to, if nothing else, be able to study the world around her, the idea was a childish one, not something she could allow herself to dwell on as she continued. “She did not return to continue the lesson, so by the time the class was over, we had just kind of accepted that that would be it, that we had just got a slightly extended break. Yeah,” Zelda let out a short laugh, her vocal cords interrupting it halfway through, leaving her with no other choice than to clear her throat and try to hide how her voice broke, “we found out during our next class with her that we had been way too quick to assume that that was all that would happen, for she returned to tell us that we would take a short break from the subject of pressure in a liquid column to instead try to gain a better understanding of electrical circuits by studying our phones with the goal being that we would have to copy it and make changes to the mechanical side of the phone.”

“And how did that go?”

Zelda heard something snap as she turned to look at Ganondorf so quickly that the rest of the world became a blur, allowing her to focus on nothing but the fact that he was finally looking like there was no part of his thoughts that was dedicated to his phone. His words registered in her brain, Zelda struggling to hide the fact that she had to go over them for a moment before realising what he had just asked. At least it did not appear that Ganondorf had noticed the slight pause before she began. “Oh, I mean, I doubt that any of us were really able to produce anything that quite managed to live up to her expectations, or at least she did not seem all that impressed with our clumsy attempts at copying what the instructions she had prepared for us told us to do. Apparently, she had wanted for us to try to think outside the box, to try to figure out our own way of dealing with the problems that arose as we worked on the project.”

“And what about your project? What did she think about that?” Link asked the question in a tone of voice that seemed almost nonchalant, his attempt at small-talking only betrayed by the way he kept on glancing between her and Ganondorf.

Opening her mouth, Zelda was little more than a moment away from telling him that, of course, she had included herself when describing how unimpressed Purah had seemed with the result, but, feeling the words escape her, she closed her mouth again. The phone—if the thing could even qualify as that, something Zelda honestly doubted, seeing as, other than being able to translate short messages into Morse code, there really was nothing about her finished product that would suggest the ability to facilitate communication—had been a little box and a downright jumble of different wires crisscrossing across the board. It was not exactly elegant, not a product that would ever have been able to impress anyone who knew what she had tried to achieve, her father having spared it less than a second of attention when she brought it home to show it to him before telling her that she had to make sure that the wires would not end up all over the house, that the thing should be hidden away in her room if she wanted to keep it. But Purah appeared to have seen something other than the disorder, or at least she had bothered to try to compliment the failed attempt at creating a way for the translation into Morse code to be reversed, back when they had all been asked to present their finished product.

Pushing the memory of how Purah had smiled at her while pointing towards the blank piece of paper that had been meant to show the translated text away with a shrug, Zelda met Link’s question with what she hoped was a cheery tone of voice. “Well, I mean, she had to try to encourage us to make another attempt, so she tried her best to focus on the things that worked about the project.”

“So she said that you had done a good job?”

She had, but it was about more than that. Sitting there in the stairway of an abandoned block of flats, Zelda could hear the way Purah’s voice had risen a bit while telling her that she thought the idea had been quite good as clearly as if she had been sitting next to her.

Keeping her gaze on the floor, Zelda heard herself answer. “She said that it was a good idea, something new.... I—” the tears stung in her eyes, reducing the world around her to a blur of darkness that was only broken by the vivid red colour of Ganondorf’s hair and the dusty green of Link’s duvet jacket. But why? Why was she about to cry now, struggling to hold back the sobs as she sat there, trying her best to figure out a way to continue forwards, to finish the story? After everything that had happened, after having left her home behind, abandoning her father to lie in the bed in an empty house that surely bore the same marks of decay as the stairwell by now, why was it the thought of something as insignificant as the poor attempt at recreating the idea in her head that left her to the struggle to keep back the tears?

Someone put their arm around her, giving her shoulder a slight squeeze as they pulled her closer towards them. It was not until she found her field of vision taken over by the barely visible green colour that had allowed him to blend in with the forest that Zelda realised who it was, Link’s voice sounding almost as broken as her own as he mumbled into her hair. “I think that it sounds like you made something truly impressive, something that would give her a reason to say all of that about the result.”

She tried to disabuse him of the idea, but as much as she fought to think of a way to prove him wrong, Zelda could not find the words. She was sitting there, squeezed between the wall and Link’s attempt at making her feel better, both of them being far too much.

“Link, maybe… I think that Zelda is already thinking about it in that way. I don’t think we have to pursue the subject further.” Zelda was saved by Ganondorf. Rising from his spot on the staircase, he crossed the little room that would be their home for the night to instead find himself back where Zelda had been mere moments ago, leaning against the wall, his body language neither open nor distant, arms not crossed, but his hands still deep in his pocket where the outline of a square revealed that he was clutching his phone in his hand. “Besides, I am sure that we all have stories from the past that… that it might make us feel better to share with others.”

There was something about the way he looked at Link, the slight raise of his eyebrows as he finished by letting his tone grow a bit higher, that told Zelda what she had already known from the moment she had been left to stand by the door while Ganondorf and Link went to sit down next to each other, a sign of something she did not understand. Looking away from Ganondorf, however, it could not have been more evident that Link was not confused about what he was trying to say, the twitch near his mouth letting her know that, while she might still be wondering just what Ganondorf was referring to, Link had already guessed it and found that he did not want to pursue it.

They had barely made it away from the streets in time, had barely been able to save themselves and had had to let others save them multiple times. She could deny it all she wanted, but fact was that Zelda had hoped that they would grow closer to each other. But now, it seemed that, if anything, they were growing more and more distant.

She realised her mistake a moment later when Link’s apprehension slowly morphed into a tired expression that was not entirely able to hide the smile in his eyes. It was not that they were growing apart, but rather that, somehow, in the hours that had followed the point in time of them arriving in Mabe, the animosity between Ganondorf and Link had shifted so that, rather than leaving her struggling to try to get them to talk with each other, Zelda was being left out of something she could not quite name.

“All right,” Link said, letting the heavy sigh stretch out to last several seconds before, with the air of someone who was bringing a great sacrifice, continuing, “I guess that I was once given a pretty good grade for an essay about the meaning of names. Happy?” lifting his brow, Link met Ganondorf’s gaze.

He must have decided to humour him, for where Zelda was struggling to follow along, Ganondorf simply looked at Link, his attempt at feigning interest nearly thinner than a paper mask. “Yeah, but I think I would be happier if you would indulge us with some details. Come on, Zelda told us everything about how her phone could translate words into Morse code; you can’t just say something like that without elaborating.” blinking at her, Ganondorf waved in Zelda’s direction. “Besides, I am sure that Zelda could also use a chance to think about something other than everything going on outside.”

She had halfway expected for Link to brush it off, but as he looked over at her, Zelda was surprised to see the hesitation in his eyes, the little sign that he was honestly considering it, that he might be agreeing with the sentiment. Only, it made no sense. She and Link had, after all, been the ones to try to distract Ganondorf from thoughts about his sister and everything that had passed. That was what he had made it seem like at least, having given her every opportunity to continue to talk about the school project Zelda already knew was a bore to hear about. And now he was sitting there, shooting her a thoughtful glare, leaving Ganondorf’s words about them trying to distract her to echo in Zelda’s mind. Was he not seeing that it was exactly what they had tried to do for him? Had he not realised the connection between him sitting there, completely absorbed by his phone, and Link continuing to ask her about some unimportant school project? It seemed that he honestly hadn’t, Ganondorf sending her a tiny smile as he noticed her eyes on him. That, or he was better at hiding it from her than what Zelda had expected to be the case.

No matter what, before she got the chance to find the words to protest the idea of them having to feel any kind of obligation to distract her, Link moving to stand up marked the end to the window of opportunity to dispel the idea. Pacing around the room for a moment, Link finally stood still by the noticeboard to the left of the door, the faded pieces of paper behind him serving to remind the residents of some agreement about the use of the attic, the exact details of which Zelda could not make out in the darkness of the room. But it didn’t matter, not when Link barely gave her the chance to take in the fact that he might honestly have agreed with Ganondorf as he began. “Well, you know, it wasn’t really something I cared about all that much, but my teacher did, and so, I decided that trying to make grand claims about what made some names become popular instead of others, backing them up with the absolute minimum of research that I could get away with, would be a good way to improve my grades. And, I mean—”

Ganondorf snorted. A moment later, he had pressed his left hand against his mouth, the gesture still not able to hide the amusement in his eyes as he slowly lowered his hand. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to interrupt you. It’s just,” another snort filled the space between the heavy smell of beans and the ever-present scent of rot, “we would be obvious candidates for a case study, wouldn’t we?” using his spoon to point at each of them, one after the other, Ganondorf’s voice sounded oddly young with laughter. “I mean, Zelda, Link, and Ganondorf—I doubt that anyone would struggle to name the two popular names in that group.”

He was right. Following the line his spoon drew as he lowered it back into the mixture of beans and slightly too sweet sauce, Zelda found it difficult to believe that she had not thought about it before it had been pointed out to her. The book on myths felt almost like it was calling for her from its spot near the bottom of the pile of supplies, only drowned out by the way she could still hear what her father would have said if she had been able to tell him about her thoughts, how he would have left her to return with the book on the history of the Bosphoramus family. It would have been a never-ending lecture about the distant ancestor, Zelda always forgetting just how many ‘great’’s she had to add on to his title to reach the right generation, who had decided to burden every woman born into the family with the same name, his father’s eyes shining so brightly that it looked like he and not her mother had been the one to be born into the family and the tradition as he listed all the achievements of previous Zeldas, how some great-great-great-grandmother had been the one to carry Hyrule out of the Third Economic Crisis after the war through the implementation of her taxation reforms. Really, when held up against something like that, Zelda could almost understand why every little thing she would do never really seemed to live up to his expectations. What was a poor imitation of a phone that was not even able to support the basic functions of one when compared to having saved the entire country from being thrown into a deep recession and leaving a mark on history that was great enough to dedicate a room to her in the parliament?

In truth, as she sat there, Zelda doubted that even her father had ever come close to reaching just a fraction of everything that particular Zelda had achieved. The thought was accompanied by bile rising in her throat a moment later, as Zelda realised what she had just been thinking, that, of course, her father would never get the chance to achieve something like that. The Zelda had died at eighty-one, surrounded by her family if the family history was correct. Her father had died at fifty, lying in his bed as he asked for another glass of water, only to then be left behind as his daughter fled the house to find herself here, in some stairway in Mabe, where she could blame him for the fact that she would never have been able to achieve any degree of success in politics as long as she allowed her interest in electronics and the finer workings of her devices to distract her from her real goal.

“Zelda?”

“Huh?”

She looked up to find both Ganondorf and Link looking down at her, the worry clear in the crease between their brows and the glances they exchanged with each other as she shook her head, trying to recall what they had just said, anything that would have allowed for her to bring their attention away from her, only to find herself without any idea of what they had just discussed.

The darkness was a blessing in disguise; Zelda knew that as her cheeks became warmer. In the sun, there was no doubt about how they would surely have been able to spot the blush, but now, Zelda was able to somewhat convince herself that everything was fine, forcing out a laugh that sounded fake even to herself. “Oh, sorry, I think I was just a bit tired. Running from wolves and all that, you know? Anyway, I’m sorry to ask, but what were you saying?”

Another set of glances passed, Ganondorf at least trying to make an attempt at not letting them be overly overt, but failing nonetheless. Perhaps she should have pointed out the fact that she could see the exact moment where Link, making a toss of the head in her direction that was perhaps not meant to be as obvious as it was, clearly communicated the fact that they would not try to get her to tell what had taken her focus away, but at that point, Zelda was simply relieved to not have to talk about any of it. If she still found herself struggling to be at peace with the fact that, for her, the chance of freeing herself from the expectations of those around her and in particular from the fact that, no matter what she would do, it would not be enough to justify her name, had ended along with the rest of the world, that was her problem. The world had already lost all meaning; there was no need for her to give any of those who had been left behind more reasons to worry.

“We were just talking about—well, you know,” Ganondorf blinked at her, the gesture seeming more like a twitch in the darkness, “that the two of you really got the better names out of our little group.”

It felt like he had been able to read her mind, pinpoint the very thing that had followed her like a curse throughout her life, and then let it shift to become a comment that could be said with a smile and a twinkle in the eyes. But he hadn’t. The fact that Zelda knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had not known was not only due to her knowing that he would never have been able to guess it, not without her having told him, but also the simple fact that it was not who he was. Maybe it was foolish to believe that the few weeks they had spent in each other’s company would be enough to allow her to state that with such confidence, but that was nevertheless something she was sure of. He had not known.

Still, the difference between knowing that and not allowing it to feel like a punch to the stomach was a gap that felt impossible to bridge. Looking up at the faces of her companions, seeing how the passage of time was marked in the increasing amount of worry present there, Zelda tried her best to bring herself to smile. “Yeah, I can imagine. I certainly know what it feels like to constantly have to go by my surname in any classroom setting to keep the confusion from being total whenever anyone wants to talk to me.”

“Same,” Link said, coughing slightly, perhaps in an attempt at covering up the relieved lilt to his voice. If so, he failed miserably, but Zelda decided that she would accept the fact that, at the very least, he did not try to ask about what had just happened. “I cannot tell you how many times some poor substitute would try to say my name to get me to be quiet, only for even more chaos to erupt when four people would all try to ask if she was referring to us.” shaking his head, Link chuckled. “Really, it was a steep learning curve, but for most of them, it only took a few weeks to learn that if they actually wanted for the person they were talking to to react rather than half the class, they would have to add the surname.”

“And I can’t relate at all,” Ganondorf said, his voice just cheerful enough to keep Zelda from trying to apologise, “I mean, the history associated with it? Not exactly an amazing thing to learn about in the third grade. That was not a great time. At least my sister got a better name than me.”

Immediately, the air in the room felt like the electricity from the core had followed them inside, crackling around them as Zelda tried to decide whether or not to offer her condolences. It should not have mattered, not when everyone else was already dead, but then again, she had seen first-hand the way Ganondorf’s face had lit up once he had his phone back in his hands again.

It was Link who came to her rescue and kept her from having to make a decision. Nodding along to what Ganondorf said, there was not much alarm to be found in his behaviour as he snickered. “Yeah, no offence, but what happened to those names? One child named after someone infamous for his ruthless pursuit of the Triforce and the other named after the chief of the Gerudo who was able to win back the Thunder Helm a hundred years after it had been stolen?”

“Well, Ganondorf is a family name, so it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Besides, I never really got to learn about Riju until I went to school, so it wasn’t like I was aware of the fact that, to many, my sister had really won out when it came to the names in my family.”

They continued to chat about the names, Zelda soon finding their voices bleeding together into a single, monotonous source of noise in the back of her mind as her head began to tip down, her field of vision consisting of little more than the can of beans in her hands. It must have become cold by now. It had to.

Idly wondering if it was even a problem serous enough to warrant her asking Link if he could heat it up, ignoring the threat open fire would pose to the building, Zelda found that she did not care. It wasn’t like it mattered, both the building burning down and the fact that the beans where cold. There were plenty of buildings all around them and no more people to live in them. Who would even care if the entire world was devoured by flames when there was no one left to suffer because of it? Even if they were somehow able to reach Lurelin Village, something that had become even more unlikely in a matter of seconds the moment they had first identified the howls as belonging to wolves, they would still have to sail across Faron Sea, and then, the sight that would most likely meet them would be the ruins of Labrynna along with the stark realisation that, much like the Gerudo Desert marking the border to Hyrule had not been enough to keep the disease contained to just Hyrule, the sea that separated Labrynna from Hyrule had not been enough to protect it. She could try all she wanted to convince herself of the opposite being the case, to lie for Ganondorf’s sake, and perhaps it was nothing more than the tangible proof of everything that had happened being all around her, but, sitting there, a can of cold beans in her hands, the spoon leaning against the side of it, Zelda could not have cared less about what might happen to her. It didn’t matter, not anymore.

The metal tin clattered against the stairs beneath her as it slid out of her grip, the spoon sliding across the floor, but as Zelda stumbled up to the landing to curl up around herself the sight of Link and Ganondorf still chatting animatedly, Link waving his arms, clearly excited about the thing he was talking about, made it clear that they had not noticed. That, or perhaps they had ceased to care as well. As the darkness grew heavier around her, Zelda losing the fight to keep her eyes open, she really didn’t know what was the case.

+++

“So that was taken on her first day of school?”

Zelda woke up to the sound of someone whispering. A second passed, all she was able to focus on being just that, before the sensation of something heavy over her registered in her brain. Lifting her hand up to push it away, the soft surface of it let her know that it was a blanket, the thick fibres of the fabric marking it as the one they had taken from the camping store. The next thing her body finally woke up enough to bother to sense was how the cold had sneaked into the room sometime between her falling asleep and waking up again, bringing along the unpleasant tense feeling of having attempted to stave it off by alternating between tightening the muscles and relaxing, all it achieved amounting to little more than making her even more alert and aware of the coldness having seeped into her bones.

She had not said anything, had not done anything to let them know that she was awake, and still, as Zelda looked over at Ganondorf and Link, she had halfway expected for them to have noticed, perhaps falling quiet for a moment to allow her to ask what time it was, the dark square that was the window not providing her with much information in that regard.

But as she finally lifted her head a few centimetres, the tiny movement feeling almost equal to having run for hours on end, all Zelda could see was their backs as they sat there, occupying the step she had moved away from. They were looking at something, that much was clear, sitting huddled together, their heads bowed in over something, but as much as Zelda tried to move closer to them, wriggling, with one hand clutching the fabric of the blanket to keep it from slipping off to completely expose her to the cold, she could not see just what it was. The only thing to do would have been to announce that she was awake and that what appeared to be a private moment wasn’t private anymore, but before her brain had a chance to reach a point where she would have been able to form a coherent sentence, Ganondorf nodded, keeping his voice low as he answered what appeared to have been a hushed question.

“Yes. Koume was the one to take this picture—see, you can just barely spot me and Kotake there in the background; I was the child who had decided that wearing neon green for his sister’s first day of school would be the perfect way to get potential bullies to dedicate their focus to him rather than her.”

And just like that, the goal of trying to tell them that she was hearing every word of their conversation melted away, Zelda instead finding herself frozen, the blanket still halfway thrown off her, as she strained her ears to catch Link’s response.

“I get that. I think I did roughly the same thing back then.”

“Did it work?” the question was punctuated by a chuckle that made it all too clear to Zelda that, not only did they seem to share something she could not understand nor participate in, they might never have gone to sleep, having instead looked back up to find that she was fast asleep and then gone to throw a blanket over her before taking the opportunity to speak without her being able to overhear them.

If anything, the growing sense of dread the realisation was accompanied by should have made her cough, move and let the sound of the blanket being dragged across the floor alert them to the fact that she was no longer sleeping, and yet, Zelda found herself slowly shift her weight to the side, rolling just a little further towards the stairs to better allow herself to listen to what they were saying.

“Goddesses no, not at all!” laughter filled the room, both Ganondorf and Link sounding several years younger in a matter of seconds. “If anything, it just gave the bullies another reason to focus on her when I left. I… I know that it is not good to laugh at their misfortune, but seeing how she returned home after that first day to tell me about how some seagull had apparently flown over the bullies just as they had approached her, bird droppings landing on the girl who had just made fun of her for having brought her telescope along, I that those bullies actually deserved it. Besides, if nothing else, at least it was enough to definitively prove to me that she could take care of herself.” Link’s voice broke on the last word, the sound of sniffling soon being accompanied by the rustle of clothes as he lifted his arm, no doubt to wipe away tears. “I’m sorry, it’s just… it’s difficult to talk about it. I know that it is like that for all of us, but I—”

“Don’t worry about it.” the warmth in Ganondorf’s voice felt like it should have been enough to chase off the icy cold, and still, Zelda found that her blood had been replaced with ice as the fact that now, more than ever before, she would not be able to tell them that she was awake dawned on her just as Ganondorf put his arm around Link’s shoulders. “We are all going through the same thing, that’s true, but it doesn’t make it any better for any of us. Just… can I ask you to remember that you can talk with us? About anything—seriously, no matter what it is, you can tell us about it.”

A beat of silence, and then Zelda saw Link nod, leaning against Ganondorf as he answered. “Yeah, I know. It’s just… saying it out loud almost feels like it will make it more real, you know? I get that it doesn’t really work like that, but sometimes—sometimes I find myself forgetting it, thinking about how I will have to go back home soon, only for it all to come back.”

“And then it feels almost like we have lost them all over again,” Ganondorf finished. Zelda could picture the way he would raise a brow as he turned his head to look over at Link, “isn’t that how it is? We have lost them once, and now it is just a never-ending cycle of forgetting and remembering them over and over again.”

“It certainly feels like that.” a humourless laugh filled the silence. “Gan, if everything had not ended up the way it did, you could have become a therapist or something like that.”

“The engineer in me takes that as an insult, but the rest of me is going to regard it as a compliment.”

“Please do. It was certainly meant as that—a compliment, I mean.”

Her stomach ached as she continued to listen, the sound of Link letting out a short sigh feeling like a knife being twisted in her chest. Here they were, chatting like old friends when, not only a day ago, they had barely exchanged more than a handful of sentences with each other. Even though her brain was still struggling to catch up with the events around her, the lack of sleep having finally showed the extent of its effects now that she had been able to rest for a moment, the question of what had changed between then and now wasn’t a particularly challenging one. Her presence was the changed variable. Before, she had been there, and Link had looked over at her with an expression like he was expecting for her to fall apart any moment when, really, they should be worried for Ganondorf instead, and now, they were sitting there, talking to each other with the knowledge that she was fast asleep to keep them from worrying about her. Despite the tiredness numbing all other senses, the hurt still cut into her as Zelda pulled the blanket just a bit tighter around her, careful not to make a sound as Ganondorf gestured towards something in front of the two.

“You know, Link… I am sorry about how I acted before. I don’t know why I did it. I mean you had just saved our lives and everything, and then I—”

“Stop.” Link held up his hand. “If you want to apologise, you should at least let me start. I had no reason for behaving the way I did, no reason for refusing to talk with you—”

“But I—” a sharp intake of breath brought an end to what Ganondorf had been about to say. As he continued, Zelda could almost hear the smile in his voice. “Shall we agree that we were stupid back then and let the past remain the past?”

“Sounds like a good idea to me.”

The sound of low voices gave way to laughs, Zelda able to name the exact moment they remembered her from how the laughs became muffled, Link and Ganondorf sitting with their hands over their mouths, the laughter instead moving from the air to sparkle in their eyes. The realisation came a little too late, Zelda only noticing the way they were about to move seconds before it happened.

Letting her head drop to the ground, counting on her hair to soften the thud, Zelda squeezed her eyes shut, the hand clutching the blanket coming to a point near her chin to help hide the fact that she had just been listening in on their conversation as both Link and Ganondorf turned to look up at her.

The seconds passed at an agonisingly slow rate, Zelda not daring to take a peek to try to guess whether or not they knew that she was awake. One second, the wood creaked, Zelda being almost entirely certain that it originated from Link having moved to walk up the stairs to see if she was asleep, and the next it had grown quiet again, no further sounds coming that would have indicated that they had noticed her too quick breathing or the sound of her heart beating furiously against her sternum. Holding her breath, Zelda waited for something to happen to bring an end to the tense seconds of silence.

Finally, that something came in the form of Link’s voice. “I think she is still asleep, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to keep our voices down.” Zelda kept her eyes closed, but even then, the way his voice grew much quieter than before, clothes rustling a little, was enough to tell her that he had most likely slumped down on the step again, perhaps leaning against Ganondorf as he continued. “Look, I know that what you’re saying is true. She would understand, but I—and I know that it is stupid and irrational—but I just can’t shake this feeling that the more people I tell, the more real it becomes. So, just... please, let me have a few more days where I can try to be somewhat at peace with it. I am not asking for you to lie, but just… let me figure out how to deal with it and how to tell her on my own. You saw her back then, if I don’t figure out just how to tell her, she is going to blame herself for it and take needless risk to try to make me feel better. So just… please give me some more time to figure this out.”

They moved, Zelda hearing the wood creak beneath them, the fact that she lay with her head pressed against the floor letting the vibrations travel directly towards her. In her mind, she could see how Ganondorf would tilt his head, worry apparent in his eyes. It was, after all, the same way he had looked when trying to get her to open up about her father, all the times he had tried to get her to at least acknowledge the feelings she had about the fact that, in a matter of hours, every last chance she would ever have been given to try to create a life for herself had been taken away from her, leaving her with nothing but a dead world to travel through in search of something she could use to convince herself that there was still meaning to be found somewhere, making her breath grow quicker.

“If that is what you think is best for you.” the doubt seeped into Ganondorf’s voice as he spoke.

Zelda could almost picture how Link would look away, trying his best to convince himself that it was really for the better. It was what she would have done.

But it seemed that she did not know Link nearly as well as she thought. Perhaps it should not have come as a shock to her, not with how she was able to count back and realise that she could count the number of days that had passed since they had first met him on one hand, and still, Zelda had to fend off the urge to wrap the blanket closer around her to chase away the cold as Link spoke.

“Look, I know that it isn’t. And… I suppose that I will have to tell her before long. I just have to figure out how to do it without having it become a repeat of her finding out about your sister.”

Silence followed, and, little by little, Zelda felt the exhaustion wash in over her, making it impossible to keep her body from growing heavier and heavier, her thoughts circling back and away from the conversation as the darkness closed in around her. She could not tell the exact line between those seconds of lying there, still halfway aware of her surroundings, and the moment she slipped into a dreamless sleep, but it must have come and passed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, Zelda is left to try to cope with the new issues that come with their group consisting of three people rather than two.


	9. Chapter 9

The following morning arrived, mist covering the world outside as Link opened up the door to let fresh air into the room. Blinking to try to let her eyes grow accustomed to the bright light of the sun that peeked through the clouds above, Zelda took in the sight of the city. It was not that she had never stepped out of her house to find that a thick layer of mist gave her the message of having to turn on her bicycle lamps before heading outside, but now, there was something eerie about the way it lay over everything, the layer of white reducing visibility, creating the illusion of the skyscrapers in the distance being little more than the windows near the top that was able to catch and reflect the rays of sun.

“We should probably get going. I don’t know about you, but after seeing those wolves, I would prefer for us to at least be somewhat close to another city when night falls.”

Turning towards him, Zelda saw that Ganondorf had come to join her in standing in the doorway.

For a moment, they just stood there, Link hurrying around inside, packing up their supplies, the blanket Zelda had lacked the energy to pick up soon lying as a bundle on top of their food as he gestured for them to move aside to allow him to push the trolley out onto the street. Looking over at Ganondorf and seeing the way he had not looked away from her for even a moment, Zelda could taste the words, the question of just what he and Link had been talking about the past night already waiting to let itself be heard. But she did not allow it to pass over her lips. Saying it and acknowledging the fact that she had kept herself from falling asleep to allow her to listen in on their conversation would only make it even more real, would prove that she had not been dreaming about those moments. Besides, if they kept secrets from her, it was not like she had any right to demand to know about them, not with how she guarded her own secrets like her life depended on it.

That was what Zelda tried to convince herself of as she broke eye contact with Ganondorf to instead use the tip of her shoe to try to dig into the ground beneath her feet, achieving nothing more than making the tip of her feet hurt. Even though she knew on a rational level that it did not do anything to take away the little knot of worry in her stomach that they might leave her behind in the end, it was enough to keep her from voicing her thoughts.

Link returned to their sides a moment later, and before long, all three of them had agreed to the plan of continuing south, heading towards the fields that covered the landscape there in the hope that the wolves would have run in a direction where they could find cover in a forest rather than out in the open. Zelda moved without thinking, simply nodding along to their plans when Ganondorf sent her a questioning glance. It did not matter anyway. Even if she had had a better idea than that, she would have let them go ahead with theirs as long as she was still able to come along. And so, they set out.

They must have made a weird sight if there had been any onlookers who could have watched as they left the city, three people whose appearances spoke of the weeks that had passed since the last time they had been near any chance of getting a proper bath. Perhaps she had grown somewhat used to her own smell, but even then, Zelda still noted the harsh odour of the days on the road as she tried to discreetly smell her shirt. It was not one single smell, not something that would have allowed her to pinpoint just what was so wrong about it. Rather, it felt like it was a combination of everything that had happened, the weeks outside, having to spend too much time within the cities, and the time she had thrown herself to the ground the moment someone had shown up to try to handle the bear in front of them, all combining with one another to form a single sensation that was powerful enough to make her have to cough in an attempt at clearing her mind of the memory.

They had not discussed it, but it only took a few minutes of the shopping trolley veering from side to side as Ganondorf and Link pushed it along, Ganondorf gesturing towards it every other second to get Link to match his own movements, for them to silently agree that it was not working, Link letting go of the handle to, without a word, allow Ganondorf to be the only one in charge of it. Ganondorf for his part, did not seem annoyed at him, simply humming some melody under his breath, the uneven ground below them making his arms and voice shake as the wheels of the trolley passed over every last hole in the road. Zelda could not recognise the melody, but it seemed that Link did, or at least he soon joined Ganondorf, whistling along to the melody as Mabe soon became little more than a dot in the distance, the field instead growing to become all they could see no matter in which direction they looked.

The sun continued to rise above them, slowly climbing up in its attempt at reaching its apex on the sky, as Zelda walked along next to them. More than once, she could almost believe that she was about to say something, finding herself opening her mouth to remark on the clean air or the blue sky above them, but each time, Link’s voice echoed in her mind, the way he had sounded when he had told Ganondorf not to tell her about their conversion silencing her.

They continued like that for what felt like ages but could not have been more than about an hour judging from the position of the sun, the only sound to break the silence being that of Ganondorf and Link’s impromptu concert. The melody had changed a couple of times, Zelda perking up each time, only for the fact that she still did not know what they were humming along to to take away the sudden burst of energy once more.

Finally, Link broke through the never-ending amount of music she did not know, turning towards Ganondorf as he walked. “Listen, I am not trying to be difficult here, but it is just me, or are we not really getting anywhere at all?”

Though she hated to admit it and let the hour of feeling out of place have been for nothing, Zelda was tempted to agree with him. It was not as much a case of them truly not having achieved anything during the last hour as it was a matter of the unchanging appearance of their surroundings removing all sense of making progress, but as Zelda looked ahead to see nothing other than a dusty road and grassy fields for as far as the eye could see, she could not blame Link for thinking that they had not moved a metre since they had first left Mabe behind.

However, before she got a chance to say any of that, Ganondorf had halted, Link and Zelda following suit to look at him as he cast a glance towards Link, a beaming smile slowly forming on his face as he gestured towards the trolley in front of him. “Get on,” Ganondorf said.

“What?” Link asked, the confused edge to the word mirroring the way Zelda felt a crease forming between her eyebrows as she looked first at Ganondorf and then at the trolley.

Seemingly unfazed by the fact that none of them understood what he meant, Ganondorf nodded towards the shopping trolley once more. “Step onto it. If you are careful, there should be more than enough space for you to stand on the metal bar over the wheel without also stepping on the water. You too, Zelda. Get on, then I can push you for a while—just make sure to pick a side each to keep it balanced.”

Getting on the trolley to let it be pushed along a road that was littered with holes deep enough to have made her almost trip over them twice already seemed like the last thing they should be doing, but as Link returned Ganondorf’s grin with one of his own, already running to jump onto the left side of the trolley, Zelda felt how the worries melted away to instead give way to the realisation that she had, at least, not been left out of this. So, without giving herself another moment to worry about the fact that she had no idea what they would do in the event that the trolley would tip to the side, whether she or Link would be able to avoid having it fall onto them if it were to happen, she copied him, placing her foot on the metal bar, clinging onto the right side of the trolley, fingers curling around the net-like side, as she lifted her other foot off the ground as well.

The next moment, Ganondorf had set the trolley into motion. Zelda had halfway expected for him to have continued to push it along just as he had done before, all three of them having walked along the road at a pace that was perhaps not as fast as it should have been, Link’s words about wanting to reach a city before nightfall taken into account, so when he began sprinting, all she could do was to hold onto the side of the trolley for dear life and try her best not to let her panic show as the trolley wobbled dangerously beneath her for a moment before Ganondorf regained control over it, barely managing to keep it on the road as it made a sudden turn in front of them. Tearing her gaze from the supplies right in front of her, the water in the bottles shaking alongside the trolley and her, making it seem almost like an expression of solidarity, Zelda gritted her teeth, pushed back the fear, and looked up.

Link was laughing, and not just the little laughs they had been able to use to distract themselves from everything that was happening, none of the tense lines of strained muscles to be found in his expression as he met her gaze. He looked like he was truly enjoying himself, and although it should not have made a difference to her, there was something about standing there, the little metal beam beneath her feet being all that separated her from the ground rushing by her as she listened to Ganondorf and Link’s loud yelps as the trolley hit a slight bump in the road, making them fly through the air for a fraction of a second before they hit it, the impact rattling Zelda as she held onto the side, that brought a smile to her face. Although she had to clench her jaw to keep herself from accidentally biting her own tongue, although the adrenaline was making the world around her seem even sharper, suddenly, Zelda heard herself join in on the laughs, cheering loudly as Ganondorf pushed a bit harder, making them move just that little bit faster that felt like it was all that separated them from being able to fly. Next to her, she heard the wind take away both Link’s and Ganondorf’s voices, leaving them behind her as everything else melted away to leave her with the feeling of wind throwing her hair around her face, most of it flying behind her but a few strands coming in front of her face, Zelda having to shake her head to try to get the locks of hair out of her eyes. Throughout it all, she could not keep herself from laughing. Perhaps it was the adrenaline and the hopeless situation that had finally managed to make her lose her last bit of sanity, but if that was the case, Zelda would not complain. If losing what little rational thoughts she still had left meant being able to exist like this, free and without the burden of the past, then she would chose it in a heartbeat over anything else.

But, of course, like every other good thing that had ever happened, the moment had to come to an end, the trolley coming to a stop that was sudden enough to almost make her lose her grip on the metal bar. Barely managing to stay on the shopping trolley, Zelda at first thought that it was Ganondorf who had had to stop their moment of elated screams, the task of having pushed the trolley for what must surely have been hundreds of metres having left him winded and in need of a break. However, as the world and its sounds came back to her, Zelda knew that that was not the case. Rather than looking exhausted, gasping for air, Ganondorf was looking right past her, his eyebrows raised in a silent question. The reason for that soon became clear.

Jumping off the trolley, Link had already halfway run around it, pointing towards something in the distance, as he spun around to look back at them. What little sounds the wind and the distance he had already put between them did not steal away was muddled in Zelda’s ears, but even then, she could still understand the gist of what he was saying.

“There’s something—over there!” Link yelled before completing the turn to continue to run through the tall grass covering the field next to the road.

“Gan—” Zelda turned towards Ganondorf, already waiting for him to tell her that they had to be careful in their attempt at following along behind Link, but he did not seem to hear her, having already let go of the trolley to run after Link. Zelda could hear him yell his name, the sound being caught and thrown around by the wind, but it felt almost like it did not quite register in her brain, every last thought slowing down until they stood still to instead let her feel how the realisation that he had just left her without sparing her another glance set in.

Still, even if they seemed to have forgot about her, Zelda could not allow herself to be left behind because of that, so, fully abandoning the trolley, she broke into a run, following the path of broken blades of grass, Link little more than a figure in the distance and Ganondorf having already gained a considerable lead by the time Zelda felt the adrenaline push through her boundaries to allow her to run like she had not spent weeks balancing on the edge between barely being able to survive and outright being malnourished. The air, as cold as she knew it had been just that morning, felt like fire in her aching lungs as Zelda pushed herself to run faster, Ganondorf soon becoming larger in her field of vision as she finally reached his side.

He cast a glance in her direction, and as much as it could simply have been wishful thinking, Zelda was certain that she was not imagining the little nod he sent her as the two of them continued to chase after Link.

A building marked a sudden disturbance to the otherwise never-ending expanse of grass they had first seen when looking out over the field. The memory of the map of Hyrule was still fresh in her mind from the hours she and Ganondorf had spent poring over it to try to figure out if there was a better way of reaching Lurelin Village than to travel through the Faron Province, and still, Zelda was not able to recall the name of the building. It must be a ranch, that much was clear by the fence that surrounded the property, a little bank of earth rising up around it to form a second, natural enclosure around it, but as much as Zelda tried to force herself to put a name to the main building that rose up above the ground, the two-storey structure making it stand out against its flat surroundings in a way that Zelda doubted a skyscraper would have been able to do in the city, she could not remember it. But then again, it was not like there was really anyone left to be upset about that. Most likely, the inhabitants of the ranch had been dead for a month. The thought was macabre, but as much as Zelda wanted to be able to find something to hold onto that would have been enough to disprove it, the sight of the hole in the fence that grew to become something she could not have failed to notice as they reached the house along with the horses that walked around just outside the enclosure itself, grazing, with their tails moving slightly from side to side, the horses not even bothering to acknowledge their presence as they rushed past them, was more than enough to let the uneasy feeling in her stomach become even heavier. For all she wanted to remain positive, all Zelda could do as she and Ganondorf moved around the horses, was to try to keep her mind occupied with following Link.

She had halfway expected for him to follow her line of sight and run towards the main house, but the moment before he would have reached it, Link turned right, instead stopping in front of the fence. A moment passed, just barely enough to allow Zelda and Ganondorf to catch up with him, but before any of them would have got the chance to ask him what he was doing, Link had continued towards the hole in the fence, using the fact that one of the logs had seemingly been kicked so forcefully that it had splintered, leaving a rough edge behind at each sides of the hole, to allow him to begin to make his way past the obstacle.

“Link,” Zelda panted, “Link, are you sure it’s a good idea? I mean, we don’t really have any way of treating any possible infection, so—”

“Look.” pointing towards a spot in the distance, Link said the word like it was enough to explain everything, and maybe it was, for despite how she wanted for nothing more than to tell him that they could not afford to follow every last impulse that went through their mind, Zelda found herself looking in the direction he pointed at.

Just across from the hole in the enclosure, there was a horse. With its reddish brown fur and height Zelda was tempted to say that it had been the kind of horse that would have made her father nod and talk about how it had once been customary for the children born into their family to receive a foal once they became a teenager that would then be raised to become the perfect animal for them back before that world had come to an end. However, the sound of her father pointing towards history books and stories of people Zelda struggled to remember the name of was drowned out by the way Zelda did not have to ask Link for confirmation to know that the horse would not continue to be there if it did not receive help.

It was not hurt, not directly at least, but as it moved its head, Zelda seeing how it tried to move towards them the moment it noticed their presence, it became clear that it had got stuck in the fence, its hoof seemingly wedged in between the different logs, making it unable to pull it away or deliver a kick that was strong enough to free itself.

“I…” Link’s voice pulled her back to reality, the fact that he could not have been able to know about the possibility of there being a ranch almost an entire kilometre away from the road they had agreed to follow nor that there was a horse that had got stuck there when he had first run away from them repeating in the back of Zelda’s mind as Link swallowed before continuing. “I have to help her.”

More than anything, Zelda wanted for it to make sense, for her to be able to look at Link and reason that, with how he had grown up on a ranch, perhaps it had somehow made him learn about the location of other ranches, a knowledge that might then have made him feel like he was responsible for the survival of the animals there after the death of their owners. And maybe she would have been able to make herself believe that if it had not been for the little edge of something else in his voice as he said the words, the way Link’s eyes shone with a strange light that was almost enough to make Zelda take a step back, away from him, as she fought to regain the ability to speak.

She was grateful for how Ganondorf stepped in, reaching out to hold onto Link’s arm, keeping him from going through with the plan of climbing through the hole. “Hold on.” Ganondorf kept his voice calm, but Zelda could see how his arm shook as Link turned around to look back up at him. “Link, you can’t just rush headfirst into this—there might be all kinds of bacteria here, and we won’t be able to clean the wound if you get hurt while making your way into the pen. Besides, how can you know that the horse might not hurt you? It’s a big animal and if it’s stuck—”

Link interrupted him before he got a chance to finish. Pulling his arm out of Ganondorf’s grasp, Link shook his head. There was something eerie about his movement, something about them that made them seem almost too slow and too quick at the same time, unfocused, as if there was someone else moving him as he spoke. “Don’t worry; I know that she would never hurt me.”

“Link!”

But it was too late. Before either Ganondorf or Zelda was able to hold him back or try to make him listen to reason, Link had turned around.

Without hesitating for even a moment, he had grabbed onto both sides of the ruined fence to allow himself to jump onto the lower log and from there down onto the ground. Just like that, he was inside the pen, leaving Zelda and Ganondorf to stand outside as he ran towards the opposite side of the grassy area.

Reaching out to hold onto the log, it seemed like Ganondorf was going to call out for him once more, but he closed his mouth again, instead turning to look down at Zelda. She could already see what he was going to say in his eyes, but even then, that did not do much to soften the feeling of having him choose Link rather than her as he shook his head, muttering something under his breath that sounded like a swear, before following Link in his jump over the fence, breaking into a run the moment his feet hit the ground again.

Zelda remained where she had first stopped, looking after him as the distance between them grew. The wood was rough beneath her fingers, a couple of splinters sticking out from the planks, and still, Zelda found herself clutching the log so tightly that she saw her knuckles turn white. The right thing to do would have been to follow them, to ignore the risk of injury in her attempt at keeping them from leaving her behind yet again, and still, Zelda stood there, feeling less like a human and more like a statue as Ganondorf slowed down, his hesitation clearly owed to the fact that Link had knelt down next to the horse. Though she could not see exactly what he was doing, the memory of how his eyes had shone mere moments before he had run into the pen was enough to let her know that he was trying to free the horse, and from the way he continued to sit there, it would appear that he was struggling with it. Perhaps her coming over to join them would have been what would make the difference in the end. Maybe she could walk in there and help calm the horse.

There was so many things she might have done, but fact was that Zelda stayed exactly where she was, letting the moments pass by, Link soon managing to free the horse, all three of them, Link, Ganondorf, and the horse, soon crossing the pen again to walk back towards where she was still standing, having not moved as much as a centimetre in the time they had been gone.

Link was the first to reach the fence again. Grabbing onto the fence post, he jumped over the log, grinning at Zelda as he stepped aside to let Ganondorf follow him before moving back to help guide the horse over. Zelda saw the way he kept his hand against its muzzle, mumbling, as the horse finally stepped over the barrier as well.

“I knew it,” Link exclaimed, turning to look at Zelda, joy apparent on his face, “I don’t know how, but I just knew that there was someone here who was in need of help, and see?” he motioned towards the horse. “I was right. This poor girl had got her hoof stuck between two logs. It was lucky that we came by when we did, because I don’t think it would have taken much more time or much more desperation from her side for her to injure her leg in her attempt at freeing herself. Huh, do you hear that?” he reached out to pet the horse’s muzzle, the horse, for its part, turning its head towards him. “You are going to be just fine, just make sure not to get stuck there again, okay? But…” Link looked into the horse’s eyes. “I can’t very well continue to just refer to you as ‘poor girl’. Do you have a name, anything for me to call you?”

Zelda had been right; the horse was indeed the kind of horse that would have made her father talk about the past grandeur of the Bosphoramus family. With a white blaze that matched its mane and tail, it seemed like it would be easy to tell it apart from any other horse. But even then, as much as Link seemed to think the opposite, Zelda doubted that Link would be able to guess its name, much less get it to tell him what it was, despite how he leant towards the horse, still patting its muzzle as he continued to try to find different ways to ask for its name.

“Epona.” it was not until Zelda saw Link turning to look at her that she realised that she had been the one to say the word. Fighting to keep herself from blushing and brushing it off as just her being tired, Zelda straightened her back and repeated herself. “Epona. That’s… I mean we are not exactly going to actually get it to tell us its name, so we might as well give it one ourselves. And if that is the case, well, what would be a better name for a horse than that of the horse that helped the Hero of Time?”

She sounded like her father. Once, the fact that she could almost hear how she might have continued, telling them to wait as she went to find a book on the subject in her office, would have been accompanied by pride and joy, the little feeling that she might be able to impress him being impossible to ignore. Now, however, it took everything in her to keep herself from pressing her hand against her mouth in a futile attempt at taking back what had already been said. Epona. It was a name suited for a horse like the ones her father loved to lecture about, but that did not necessarily make it a bad name. Zelda had to believe that, that just because it might be something her father would choose, that did not take away the legacy of the name having belonged to the horse that was known for having helped the Hero of Time.

It would appear that Link agreed, for after glancing back towards the horse, he nodded at her. “Epona,” he mumbled, “yes, that could work. Actually, it’s a great name, really fitting for her, isn’t it? Just—Zelda Epona’s a ‘she’—not an ‘it’”

Zelda frowned despite her best attempt at staying neutral. Her father had referred to the horses that had belonged to their family in the past as ‘it’. But then again, if her father liking the name Epona had counted as a negative for her, perhaps the same should be the case for every other word he had used to refer to them.

“All right,” Zelda finally heard herself say, “in that case, she’s certainly one lucky horse, to think that the three of us just happened to pass by right when she needed us.”

“Yeah.” stepping closer to them, Ganondorf knitted his brows, sending Link a look that Zelda did not know how to read. “We still haven’t actually got an explanation for how you knew that she would be here. I mean, the ranch wasn’t visible from the road, and you still just left us to sprint through the fields to get here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that we were able to save Epona, but how…? How did you know that she would be here?”

“I…” Link placed his hand flat against the blaze on Epona’s forehead. He could try to hide it all he wanted, but Zelda still saw how he bit his lip before continuing. “I don’t know. I just felt like I had to run in that direction—and I know that it must sound crazy to you, but that was what it was like. I could just… well, not hear, but I could almost _sense_ , in a way, that there was someone here who would need my help.” he looked up at them, his gaze flickering from Ganondorf to Zelda and back again.

Part of Zelda wanted to tell him that he had to have a better reason for having abandoned them and the shopping trolley to sprint towards what was little more than a feeling that there might be something calling for him, but she could not bring herself to say it. It was not that she did not want to, that she did not feel the need for an explanation almost as a physical sensation, not that she was scared of upsetting him. Instead, her inability to do much more than to wait for Ganondorf to respond was all due to the fact that an even larger part of her understood what it meant. It should have frightened her, and deep down, Zelda could not deny the thought that perhaps it was yet another sign that she was losing her sanity, but, for as little sense as Link’s talk about having felt that someone needed him made, she understood what he meant.

They must have been quiet for far too long with how Link’s movements grew more and more sudden and uncontrolled as he looked between them.

When he spoke, Ganondorf almost threw out his response in a jumble of words, his attempt at assuring Link that all was well apparent in his tone of voice. “No—I mean, that is… understandable. Just… please remember that Zelda and I did not have any chance of knowing where you were going the next time. For all we knew, you could have been about to leave us for good, not even to mention the fact that we all left the trolley behind.”

He was not looking at her, but with how the shame made her cheeks grow warmer, he might as well have explicitly reminded them all that Zelda had been the last to leave the road, the one who should have remembered to bring the trolley along.

But Link did not even bother to look at her at the mention of the trolley, instead rubbing the back of his neck, an embarrassed gleam in his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I know that it’s not really a reason for why I did it, but I just completely forgot about everything else the moment I felt that there was someone who needed my help. I am really sorry that I did not stop to think about the fact that you guys had no way of knowing what I was doing. I never meant for you to have a reason to believe that I would leave, because, believe me, I would never have done that.”

Following Ganondorf’s line of sight, Zelda could tell the moment he made the decision, and still, she found herself taken by surprise by the fact that he also included her as he stepped forward to bring both of them in for a tight embrace. If she had known that it would happen, perhaps Zelda would have been able to prepare herself for it, but as it was, all she could do was to try to remember to breathe and make a desperate attempt at convincing herself that she did not smell as bad as the time that had passed since the world had fallen apart would suggest.

From somewhere above her, Zelda heard Ganondorf’s voice, bright and clear as he spoke. “Don’t worry. I am just happy that you are both here and that you did not get hurt while jumping over the log to get into the pen, Link.”

“Like I would ever have got hurt doing something as simple as that.” Zelda could not see anything other than Ganondorf’s sweater, but still, she could picture Link’s smirk as vividly in her mind as if she had been able to look over at him as he added. “Besides, from what I remember, you were not far behind.”

Ganondorf laughed, the sound travelling up from his stomach, Zelda able to feel its journey as it reached the air around her. “Well, given how I met you after you had placed yourself directly in the path of a bear that was about to attack me and Zelda, I think I was justified both in being a bit worried about your survival instincts and in wanting to be near you in case something happened that would leave you in need of my help.” letting go of them again, Ganondorf took a step back, leaving Zelda to struggle not to ask him to not let the hug end just yet as he continued. “But we should probably get back to the trolley now. We have a lot of distance to cover if we want to be near a city by nightfall. You said that Epona’s not injured, right? So she will be fine with us saying goodbye to her, won’t she?”

The words had barely left Ganondorf’s mouth before Zelda was able to point out an obvious flaw in his plan. The flaw was visible in the way Link’s smile fell, how he turned to look back up at Epona, his hand seemingly coming to rest against her muzzle without him realising it. He did not want to leave her.

Shooting a glance back towards Ganondorf, Zelda saw how he appeared to already be halfway about to begin to run back towards the trolley. How he had not realised the fact that Link was not about to leave Epona was beyond her, but it seemed to be the case nonetheless.

“Wait.” Link did not raise his voice, but still, it was enough to make Ganondorf stop dead in his tracks. “I know… I know that we… I know that this is irrational, but… I really don’t want to leave her. Not now, not when we have just saved her.”

He wanted to keep the horse. As Zelda looked back and forth between him and Epona, the thoughts going through her mind were not even about the fact that she had no idea what bringing her along with them would entail, how much about the horses of the past her father had left out of the stories, how much she did not know about everything it would take to bring a horse along for the journey to Lurelin Village. Instead it was about the fact that, with the way Epona kept her head close to Link, Zelda had her doubts about whether they would even have been able to leave her behind if they tried to or if she would simply have decided to follow them wherever they may decide to go.

She could not tell if that was part of Ganondorf’s thought process, the way he frowned slightly before looking over at Epona not revealing much about just what he was thinking about the idea.

But at last, Ganondorf let out a loud sigh. “All right. If you want to and Zelda doesn’t have anything against it either, I have no arguments against keeping Epona. Just—please tell me that you know something about horses, Link, because I know for a fact that I know nothing about them, and seeing as I didn’t exactly see a lot of horses in Hyrule Castle Town, I doubt that Zelda would know how to treat her either.”

Link looked over at her, the way he smiled letting Zelda know that there was nothing she could have done to hide that fact that she would never tell him to let go of Epona with how the way his face had lit up from the moment he had first run away from them was still a clear memory in her mind. “What do you say, Zelda? Can Epona come with us?”

“Yeah,” Zelda said, “I guess she can.”

“Thank you!” for a moment, it seemed almost like Link was about to throw his arms around her to bring her in for a hug, taking a step towards her only to stop again. Zelda did not know what to think about it, so she fought to keep her face from revealing any emotions as Link spun around, his hand once again finding a spot on Epona’s neck to rest against as he turned back towards Ganondorf. “I will hurry up and get back to the trolley then. Come on, Epona, we are going to head out for an adventure, all four of us!” just like that, chatting to Epona like he was expecting for her to respond to some of the things he said, Link began to walk away from them, following the path of bent blades of grass to find his way back to the trolley.

Zelda was just about to follow them when Ganondorf reached out to stop her, holding onto her hand.

“Wait, Zelda, just… I have to talk with you about something.”

“Yes?” she heard how her voice rose, trembling slightly as she tried to guess just what that something might be. Already, the memory of the previous night came rushing back, the feeling of waking up to find that Ganondorf and Link were talking about something they were purposefully keeping secret from her making her heart speed up. The dread grew in her stomach as Zelda realised that it was not entirely unlikely that that might be what he wanted to discuss, that perhaps Ganondorf had realised that she had not been asleep, merely waiting for Link to leave them to get a chance to confront her with the fact that he knew she had been listening in on their conversation.

But if that was the case, Ganondorf was hiding it well, instead smiling down at her for a moment. “I… I was just thinking about the fact that I never really got to thank you properly—for fixing my Sheikah Slate, I mean.”

“Oh.” the relief was immense as the sentence let her know that he was not aware of her having overheard their conversation, Zelda having to fight not to laugh as she realised that she had worried about nothing. “Don’t worry about that; it really wasn’t that difficult—I didn’t even fix your phone. I just transferred power to its core, nothing you could not have done by plugging it into a socket outlet back before everything happened.”

Zelda had expected for Ganondorf to accept her attempt at brushing it off, perhaps sending her a worried glance before moving on. However, that did not happen. Rather than nodding along, Ganondorf shook his head. “No, it wasn’t nothing, not to me at least. Listen, Zelda, I… I know that I haven’t said this nearly enough, but after everything that has happened, you and Link—I feel almost like you are my family. And seeing you risk electric shock just to get back the pictures I had on my phone of my sister—well, I am sure that you can imagine what it felt like for me. To watch you walk over to that car and know that you might die all because you wanted to give me back my pictures… I don’t know what my thoughts were exactly back then, but now, I know that I have to tell you that, no matter what you might have believed at the time, no matter how much you might have thought that I missed those pictures and the memories of her, I would never have asked for you to do that. Riju… Riju is dead, and there’s nothing I can do to change that. I was powerless to help her when she needed me the most, but you, I could have done more to keep you from risking your life like that, and I am truly sorry that I did not think to act before you had already put your life at risk.”

The words grew thick in the back of her throat, Zelda feeling like the sounds refused to be uttered as she looked up at Ganondorf and saw how the tears had made his eyes shine. Deep down, somewhere towards the back of her mind, Zelda was aware of the little seed of doubt that had been planted, the moment it had first appeared being a mystery to her. It could have been planted the night before, or at least, that was what she wanted to believe, but as she stood there, she could not deny the feeling that it might have been there for far longer. No matter what, fact was that she would have to say something, would have to respond to the confession. Only, she could not bring herself to say anything at all, instead merely looking up at Ganondorf as he cleared his throat, his cheeks turning slightly redder as he coughed.

“Yeah, that was what I wanted to tell you. I—just in case you had not already known, I wanted to make absolutely certain that you know that I would never have asked or expected for you to risk your life like that because of some old pictures of her.”

That was what finally gave back Zelda the ability to speak. Already knowing that the confusion had settled into her expression, she tilted her head to the side. “But, Riju—you were missing her. Why would you not want to have the pictures of her? I mean, I get that we might be the last people in the world, but even if I were to die—” Ganondorf looked like he was going to cut in, the horror apparent in his eyes, so Zelda raised her voice just enough to signal to him that she was not finished yet, “please, let me finish—even if I were to die, you would still have Link here with you, so it wasn’t like you would have had to face the reality of being all alone if something had happened to me back then.”

She had misjudged. That much was clear as silence came to fill the air between them, Zelda taking a deep breath, mentally preparing herself for any response. Ganondorf did not let out the breath he had been holding, did not look relieved that she had just removed all feelings of guilt from his shoulders. Instead, there was something in his eyes that Zelda wanted to pretend she did not know how to interpret, the wilful ignorance not doing much to shield her from the worry, confusion, and horror that flickered through his eyes in the span of a second, Ganondorf opening and closing his mouth repeatedly, giving off the impression that there was so many things he wanted to say that he did not even know where to begin, leaving him unable to do anything other than continuing to look at her in total silence.

At last, he moved, but it wasn’t to shrug of the conversation and return to Link. Instead, he reached out, placing both hands on her shoulders, the weight he put into the gesture making it seem almost like it was meant as a way for him to keep himself upright as much as it was to comfort her. “Zelda, I….” Ganondorf let the sentence trail off, swallowing thickly before continuing, his voice trembling slightly. “Look, Zelda, this,” making an all-encompassing motion, it appeared that Ganondorf wasn’t even really sure what he wanted to direct her attention towards, “this is not just a matter of finding other people in a world where I had just tried to make peace with the fact that I would be alone for the rest of what would probably become my short life. You and Link—and I know that I haven’t known either of you for that long, but if anything were to happen to any of you, even if I could somehow go out and be rescued by a team from Labrynna and taken to my aunts immediately, I would still grieve for you; I would still look back at the days we spent together here in Hyrule and wish that I could have just one of them back. I—I know that this is probably not going to change anything for you, and as much as I wish that I could take away whatever it is that is making you think that I am lying to spare your feelings when I say this, I know that I can’t, but please listen to me when I say that you are worth more than some pictures on my phone.”

Zelda had halfway opened her mouth tell him that they really needed to get back to Link, Epona and the trolley, that, for as much as he was clearly trying his best to make it all seem sincere, she had been awake to listen to his and Link’s conversation the night before and knew that he could not possible mean what he was saying, but she found herself closing it again without saying anything. It was not a matter of her fully allowing herself to believe what he was saying, but as she inspected his face, finding her eyes drawn to his and the way the honesty shone in them, Zelda felt the words falling away in a matter of moments, leaving her with no choice other than to nod. “I—” clearing her throat did not do anything to lessen the feeling of the words getting stuck, but she still tried. “Thank you. Really, Ganondorf, thank you for that. I will try to remember it.”

It looked like Ganondorf was about to say something more, but the moment passed by without him having uttered a word. Instead, he spun around to shoot a look in the direction of where Link had already moved so far away from them that he was little more than a dot against the horizon, motioning towards it as he looked back down at Zelda. “Come. We should probably hurry to catch up with him. I really don’t want to give him another opportunity to run away to some farm where there is a horse stuck in the fence without at least telling us first.”

The chuckle sounded hollow in Zelda’s ears, but at least Ganondorf did not comment on it as they both broke into a sprint, once again finding themselves running across the field to reach Link.

+++

The decision to let Link be the one to take care of Epona was one they reached unanimously without any of them having to utter a word. It simply happened; when they climbed down from the tree Link had decided was large enough to house both them and hide their trolley from the night, Zelda’s back protesting loudly as she tried to stand up straight after barely managing not to fall on her face after landing on the ground, he was the one to walk over to where they had left Epona by a little glade a few metres away, the one to guide her out of the forest again as Ganondorf and Zelda pushed the trolley, and the one who continued to walk with his hand resting against her side as they set out once more. Even those short moments was enough for Zelda to know that they would all have looked to him for guidance when it came to Epona anyway, or at least she only had to spend a few hours in the presence of the horse to come to the realisation that there was nothing about having to bring a horse along as they continued their journey to Lurelin Village that her father’s stories would have been able to prepare her for. In the legends, they had simply been present without properly existing, waiting in the background for the moment where they would be relevant for legend again. By the time Link had announced that they would have to wait for Epona to finish grazing to continue their journey twice, it was already clear to her that they were waiting for Epona to need them much more than she was waiting for her moment to rush in and help them.

In the past, if she had still looked around her and known that there were people somewhere out there who counted on her to hurry, that her father might look at her and ask just what she had been able to achieve, why she had not got a better grade, why she had yet to properly mark her entrance onto the political scene, Zelda might have tried to suggest leaving Epona behind. It would have made sense on a purely logical level; the horse seemed perfectly capable of looking out for herself if the way she would look up, ears twitching at the slightest sound, Link having to press a hand to her muzzle and mumble words to her for minutes to get her to relax, was any indication. But each time she found herself considering the idea, Zelda would look over at Link and see how he was walking next to Epona, his eyes twinkling in a way she would never have dared to take away from any of them. So the horse came with them as they made their way across Hyrule Fields towards Mount Daphnes.

Neither of them did anything to draw the others’ attention to it, but with how they were all quickening their pace after stopping for lunch, Zelda was certain that they were all thinking about the fact that if they were just able to reach Clock Town before nightfall, they would be able to sleep inside for yet another night. At least that was what she told herself to refrain from thinking too much about the blisters she could feel forming on her feet. That and the fact that Ganondorf seemed intent on doing everything in his power to try to speak with her, no doubt wishing to resume their conversation from the day before. More than once, Zelda could see his attempt out of the corner of her eye, the way he turned to her, opening his mouth, only for her attempt at doing everything in her power to continue staring straight ahead to silence him.

They had walked in silence for hours by the time it was broken. However, unlike what Zelda had expected, Ganondorf wasn’t the one to insist on saying something. It was Link.

Catching up with them, Link was almost pushed off the road by all three of them and a horse trying to walk next to each other, but just before he would have had to take a step to the side and find himself in the ditch, Epona moved a bit closer to Ganondorf’s side of the trolley, the way she hesitated for a moment before placing her hoof in front of her letting them know that she had realised that they were there and would appreciate not being stepped on.

Hidden from sight by Epona’s large body, Zelda could not know for a fact that Link was smiling, but the way his voice rose a little, the lively tone unmistakable, she was still willing to bet that he was smiling as his voice was carried by the wind over Epona and towards them.

“It was really lucky that we found Epona, wasn’t it?”

“Sure,” Zelda said, wondering to herself what it was about that exact moment that had made Link feel the need to bring up the fact that they were bringing a horse along, what had changed from every other second they had spent in her presence.

If he noticed the curt edge to her response, Link did not let it show, simply continuing. “Yeah, I think so as well. She really makes it easy to forget that she hasn’t been here with us from the very start, doesn’t she?”

This time, it was Ganondorf who was the one to answer. Speaking slowly, everything about his tone of voice seemed to go against what he said directly. “Yes, she is certainly… present.”

As if to prove his point, Epona neighed.

Link must have noticed the edge of dishonesty in Ganondorf’s voice, for he let out a sigh. “I know. It’s just… well, I used to think that I would go on to become a horse trainer when I was younger—used to pretend that I was teaching horses how to behave and everything in my backyard.” the melancholy was dripping from his words, making the change after he cleared his throat all the more apparent. “But that was in the past. Now, I was actually planning to go on to become a firefighter!”

“A firefighter?” Zelda echoed, for once simply voicing what she was thinking rather than stopping to think about the words before she said them.

“Yes, A firefighter. I guess I just wanted to help people, and then, well, being a firefighter felt like it would be a good job for me. I mean, saving people and their property from being destroyed completely—it just felt like it was something that would bring meaning into my life. What about you guys, though? What did you want to do?”

It should not have been possible to divorce the question from the act of trying to remember a time before the world had turned into the single-minded journey towards Labrynna, but somehow, Zelda was able to do just that. Or, if nothing else, at least she did not feel the sting of tears as she looked back over at a point just in front of Epona’s left legs where she could make out the familiar dirty green of Link’s jacket when she answered. “I wasn’t actually sure about what I wanted to do back then,” she began, only to realise the lie she had allowed to creep into the words, making her try again, “no, actually, I had a pretty good idea about what I wanted to do; it was just a matter of my father wishing for me to go into politics.”

“Oh,” Link said, “well, what was it that you wanted to do then?” he said it like it was nothing, the three of them merely continuing their discussion, but Zelda could still feel how she had to fight to keep herself from falling silent in response to the question.

“I guess…” Zelda said, the memory of the different brochures whirling through her mind, “I guess I would have love to study engineering—preferably at Naboris University.” sneaking a glance at Ganondorf, Zelda saw how he smiled down at her, and for once, she found the strength to return it.

“Naboris University?” Link repeated her answer, his voice rising a bit towards the end. “Hey, that’s like you, isn’t it, Ganondorf? Weren’t you studying engineering there?”

Something Zelda did not know what to think of passed across Ganondorf’s face, disappearing before it had truly got the chance to settle into his eyes as he nodded towards Link, the fact that Epona was still walking along between them making it superfluous. “Yeah, I did. I have actually already told Zelda that I think she would have done great if she had got the chance to go there. I am sure that my aunts would not have minded it if she had wanted to come home to them during school breaks, seeing as… seeing as Hyrule is so far away that it might be difficult to get home and back in time for the next semester.”

He had kept her secret. Sending him a hint of a smile, Zelda could only look ahead as she tried to let the fact that he had not told Link register in her mind.

Seemingly not realising what was going on on the other side of Epona, Link continued with the same cheerful tone to his words. “Yeah, yeah, you two, I already knew that I have two nerds at my side during this trip, there’s no need to remind me. Still, it’s probably a good thing, all things considered. I mean, you guys have me to jump in front of wild animals and then I can count on you two to actually have a plan about what to do.”

“Hey, you are also able to come up with plans,” Ganondorf protested, the laugh it received from the other side of the horse confirming that they were all aware of the fact that, with how they were only there because Link had saved them from the bear and because the plan Zelda and Ganondorf had made called for them to make their way towards Mount Daphnes, no one could deny that there was a certain degree of truth to his words.

Link did not sound upset at all as he stopped laughing, his voice still retaining the light chuckle. “No, it’s fine. My teachers always told me that I was better at the physical subjects than the more theoretical ones anyway, so it’s not really like it is something completely new for me.”

“I take it that you favourite subject in school was athletics then,” Ganondorf responded.

A second of silence ensued before Link spoke. “Actually, no, though I think that most of my teachers would have agreed with you about that. But my favourite subject was actually religion and mythology from the very beginning.” their silence must have been enough to let him know that they were trying to figure out just how that could be the case, for Link continued before they had time to ask him to further elaborate on that answer. “I don’t know, but there was always something about listening to the stories of old that just… I don’t know, but I just found myself admiring so many of the characters. I mean, the Hero of Time? Could you imagine going through something like that, getting stuck in time for seven years just so that you would be old enough to defeat some great evil—no offence, Ganondorf.”

“None taken,” Ganondorf said, brushing off Link’s worried tone with a wave he had no chance of actually seeing.

Still, Link must have heard them, for he continued. “Waking up in some place you technically know because you were there seven years ago, but realising that it is now completely unlike what you knew back then? It just sounded so tragic. Well...” something else made its way into Link’s voice, “I guess that we are kind of experiencing the same thing right now, or at least we are probably all feeling the sensation of walking around in a place we should technically know that is nothing like what we remembered.”

Zelda wanted for nothing more than to be able to find a silver lining, to find a way that their life now differed from the life of the Hero of Time, but, try as she might, she could not think of anything to say. The fact that they were only a month away from everything that had been normal as opposed to seven years seemed negligible when compared to the death that had found its way into every last corner of their world.

She was grateful for Ganondorf rushing in to continue the conversation instead of her, apparently able to find the strength to both push the trolley in front of them, push away the pain of everything that had happened, and put on a smile that was wasted on Link as he turned to look in the direction of where Link was halfway hidden from sight behind Epona. “Yes, there is… there is certainly something about those legends that feels a bit more… like they hit a bit closer to home now than they would have done before.”

“Yeah.” Link paused for a moment, and Zelda did not need to wait for him to add on to what he had just said to know that he was questioning whether or not to share his thoughts with them. He must have reached the conclusion that he should, the silence soon being broken once again. “I—well, in the legends, I mean, the problems the heroes face are often resolved by them finding the Triforce and making a wish to restore order to the world around them. Do you think that—”

“No.” Ganondorf did not raise his voice, his tone not becoming any harsher, and still, it was clear that there was no room for any of them to bring it up again even before Zelda looked at him to see that he was holding onto the handle of the trolley so tightly that his knuckles had turned white, the bone pressing against his skin. “No,” Ganondorf repeated, this time in a tone of voice that was a bit more controlled than before, “no, I don’t believe that we can somehow find the Triforce and have it allow us to somehow reverse all of this.”

He fell silent after that, keeping his gaze carefully fastened on a point just in front of them.

Walking along beside him, all Zelda could do was to glance in the direction of Epona as she tried to guess what Link was thinking and feeling. Surely, if the past couple of days were any indication, he would feel guilty for having been the one to provoke such a response. But as much as she felt sorry for him and wished that she would be able to say something to make anything about the situation better for any of them, deep down, Zelda knew that she would have agreed with Ganondorf in a heartbeat. The past was gone, and nothing they could say or do would ever change that fact. All they would achieve by pretending that anything other than that might be the case was to bring further pain to themselves.

“I...” Link’s voice was small, sounding broken. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I was just thinking… no, I guess I wasn’t really thinking. I am sorry. I know that they are gone and that they will not return.”

The sigh Ganondorf let out was not one of exhaustion, but rather one laced with guilt as he shook his head. “No, I am the one who should apologise. I know that you didn’t mean it like that. I am just—I think that I still have a lot of work to do to fully begin to comprehend what has happened.”

The comment could have been about himself entirely, but there was something about his tone of voice as he added that last part that brought back the memory of waking up at night and overhearing a hushed conversation between them from where Zelda had been able to banish it to.

She might have been wrong; it could have been all there was to it, merely Ganondorf returning the apology, but as Link quickened his pace just enough to allow him to walk half a metre in front of Epona and look over at them to make eye contact, Zelda knew that she had been right to believe that there was more to it than that.

“I—no, actually,” looking directly at her, his eyes not flickering towards Ganondorf for even a moment, the apology was apparent in Link’s face as he bowed his head slightly, “I want to begin by telling you that I am truly sorry that I have not told you this yet, Zelda. I—I haven’t known you for long, but I know that you are going to try to search for a way to make the fact that I haven’t told you about this yet a sign that you did something wrong somehow, so I just want to tell you right now that that is not the case. I didn’t tell you because I was scared at first, and after that, I refrained from telling you, deciding to only talk with Ganondorf about it not entirely because I felt like he would be able to understand me better, but mostly because I had just witnessed how much danger you were willing to put yourself in in the belief that it would be able to help us deal with our loss.”

Already, Zelda knew without a shadow of doubt what he was going to say. It was a strange sense of certainty, one completely unlike the one that accompanied arriving to class with the comfort of knowing that she had gone over the assignments several times to make sure that there were no mistakes to be found anywhere, based completely on feelings rather than logic, but it was certainty nonetheless. That could not be changed, not by any amount of attempting to rationalise it. But still, even then, Zelda felt how she tensed in anticipation for what was to come.

“I—and I want to tell you that I didn’t keep this from you because I didn’t trust you, but I—” Link looked down. “Her name was Aryll. My little sister. She—she—” his voice broke, and from the way he fell behind to once again be hidden from sight by Epona, Zelda knew that the sound of fabric rustling was created by him reaching up to wipe away the tears. “She died. Like everyone else, I guess, but, still… she died back then.”

It was like the last piece of a puzzle, that last piece of information allowing it all to come together to form a larger picture that finally answered the questions she had not fully dared to think about, feeling like she would overstep some invisible line by asking a question whose the answer was obvious now that everyone had died. But, for as much as it logically made sense, that was not what Zelda found herself focusing on. Instead, it was the way Link fell silent, the way he had kept on repeating over and over again that his silence had not been her fault. It had felt like it was back then, back when she had woken up in the middle of the night to overhear his and Ganondorf’s conversation, but now, Zelda could hardly remember why she had thought that in the first place. A dead sister. She only had to remember how Ganondorf had broken down in Mabe to know what it meant. A glance towards Ganondorf confirmed what she already knew to be the case, that that was what they had been discussing back then, their little sisters and how they had died.

“Are—” Zelda caught herself the moment before she would have been able to ask Link if he was all right. It was, after all, a meaningless question. Nothing was all right. Rather than consisting of an order that would then sometimes be disturbed, the new status quo was disorder and the search for something that would make sense, so she tried again. “I am sorry to hear about that. Truly. I—I know that I don’t know exactly what it must feel like for you—for any of you—but I am sorry that it happened. I am sorry that any of this happened.”

“Yeah.” Link mumbled the word, making Zelda have to listen carefully to make sure that she caught everything he said. “So am I.”

They continued on like that, the silence once again coming to fill the world around them, but for once, it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it could have been when Zelda saw Link walk just in front of Epona once again, him and Ganondorf exchanging looks in front of both her and the horse. It should have hurt, and just a few hours ago, Zelda was sure that it would have, but now, she was able to simply walk alongside them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they found Epona!
> 
> (Fun fact: I originally planned to have them stay at the ranch for a bit longer and to have them find some clothes for them to change into, but, in the end, I decided that with the last two chapters having consisted of them staying in the same place, they should continue with their journey)


	10. Chapter 10

Much like Hyrule Castle Town, Clock Town was surrounded by a town wall. Zelda wasn’t exactly sure exactly when or why it had been built, only recalling a vague memory of her former history teacher having talked about some great Sealing War, nor did she care all that much about the reason for its construction as they reached it, the three of them just standing there for a moment, Epona neighing from her spot next to Link as if to express her sympathy with them. Zelda could understand why. The wall was tall, tall enough to make her abandon the, in hindsight ridiculous, idea of being able to climb over it within moments as the trolley forced her to realise that that would not have been an entrance that would allow them to bring their supplies into the city. But even then, it still took a moment before they were prepared to admit defeat to instead follow Ganondorf’s suggestion of searching for the nearest gate into the city.

When they had been looking at the maps of Hyrule, Clock Town had almost seemed like a small city, at least when compared to Hyrule Castle Town. Zelda supposed that that might still be the case given how she had at least known the layout of the latter and been able to leave the city without a problem, but as they walked along the wall, it felt like the city would easily have been able to house half the world’s population.

Finally, Link letting out a victorious yelp, they saw the wall open up in front of them, the asphalted road that lead into the city almost giving off the impression that the city itself was welcoming them and telling them to head inside to enjoy the protection that would come with being able to have a solid wall between themselves and the night.

However, for as much as Zelda knew that she should be happy that they had actually been able to reach Clock Town and not found themselves lost somewhere just east of it after discovering that their navigational capabilities were not as good as they had thought, she could not shake the feeling of there being something wrong with how they simply walked right in, pushing their trolley along as they continued to walk in the middle of the street rather than the pavement next to it. There were no cars that might possibly hit them, but even then, there was something about the situation that made Zelda acutely aware of every breath she took, how the little hairs at the back of her head moved to rise, none of her attempts at telling herself that she was overreacting, that everything was fine, succeeding in calming herself.

Still, casting a glance towards where Ganondorf and Link had walked ahead, bringing the trolley and Epona along with them, Zelda made up her mind not to tell them. Though she could not hear them, seeing the way Link pulled at Ganondorf’s sleeve, pointing towards something to his left, was enough to let her know that, for once, they might fully get to enjoy themselves for a moment. After the tense silence and the way Link had seemed near tears for the past three days, Zelda would have faced every last wolf in Hyrule before she would begin to burden them with her nervous feelings.

So they made their way through the city, the more obviously tourist-oriented shops that dominated the buildings next to the streets near the entrance, Zelda spotting several sculptures that depicted a moon with a frowning face carved into it in the windows they passed by, soon being replaced by more official-looking buildings, a sign above one particularly modern building they passed before turning right at an intersection letting them know that it was Clock Town Library, Zelda finding herself moving faster to catch up with the others as the memory of the last time she had been to a library alone rose up from where she had tried to shove it down into a box to keep it from bothering her. Shaking her head, Zelda tried her best to keep it from being able to succeed at just that, pushing herself to ignore the stiff feeling in her legs of having slept in the trees and beneath the bridges that Link had deemed the safest for days as she instead moved to catch up with the others who had stopped about half a hundred metres ahead.

Even putting herself those few metres closer to Ganondorf and Link that a couple of seconds of running was able to carry her, the fact that they had stopped speaking in addition to moving was still noticeable, especially with how she had only noticed their conversation through their gestures towards each other before. In another world, she might have bothered to stop and wonder just what the reason for that may be, but that world had been taken away from them in a matter of hours, so at it was, Zelda ignored the uneasy feeling in her stomach and ran up to join them.

“Hello—” Zelda began, the question of why they had stopped dying in her throat as she followed their line of sight, turning left to look down the street in front of them.

It was an unassuming street, buildings lining both sides of it, the cars having suddenly stopped in the middle of the road just as they had come to expect when navigating a city. In truth, there was nothing out of the ordinary to be found there, or at least there would not have been, had it not been for the fact that Zelda could see the flicker of light that escaped from the windows of the building rising up above them at the end of the road, the large letters above the entrance proclaiming it to be Hyrule National Museum.

If she were to be asked later, she would not have known how long they stood there for, Zelda having to rub her eyes to know that what they were seeing was really real. Perhaps they would have stayed there until the end of times if it had not been for the light flickering again, the warm glow of it along with the way it seemed to move from window to window slowly allowing the growing suspicion that it might be the glow of torches to form in Zelda’s mind as she turned around to look at how Ganondorf and Link were still staring intensely at the museum, the look on their faces something between awe, joy, and pure fear.

Zelda could not blame them. To think that they might come across someone in Clock Town would have been a hopeless dream only a moment ago, and with the numerous sources of light that had to be present within the museum with how she could count almost ten illuminated windows, the flickering light and the fact that it would sometimes move from window to window disproving the idea that it might belong to candles that had been left in the windows, there was still something about it that felt almost like it must be a sign that she was dreaming, seeing what her mind desperately wanted to be true rather than the actual truth. But even then, they could not stay there, not when the people inside the library could leave at any moment, and so, Zelda forced herself to return to reality around her.

“We have to let them know that we are here.” Zelda waited for a moment, not continuing until she saw both Ganondorf and Link tear their gazes away from the museum to instead look at her. “Look, they have no way of knowing that we are here, and we can’t just count on luck to have them look out the window and spot us from all the way over there. We have to head over to them and let them know that we are here. Who knows, they are probably going to be overjoyed that we are here as well.”

It made sense. After all, the fact that both of their little groups were there, Zelda doubting that the people making up the group inside the museum could all somehow have known each other before and simply been lucky enough to have them all make it out alive, had to mean that they all shared the hope of finding fellow survivors to help take away the pain of being the only one still left alive. But despite it making sense, Zelda being able to think of countless reasons that she should be happy that they had reached Clock Town when they had, her attempts at explaining away the fear clinging to the air around them did not take away the heavy feeling in her stomach, nor the sensation of the hairs on her arms rising as she shot Ganondorf and Link a hesitant look.

Ganondorf was the second of them to snap out of the daze. Looking from the museum and down at her, the sight of how he clenched his jaw let Zelda know exactly when he made his choice even before he had nodded at her. “You’re right. We have to. Link, are you coming?”

It took another couple of seconds before Link seemed to realise that they were still there, that there existed a world outside the museum in front of them, the white stones that made up its exterior making it look like it had been built specifically to draw the attention of any passer-by towards it, but at last, he mumbled something that sounded like a vague confirmation.

They left Epona and the trolley behind, hiding both behind a truck just down the road. Though neither of them seemed to be willing to voice their reasoning for doing so, Zelda did not have to look at the others to know just why they did it. As they made their way up the stairs towards the set of double doors leading into the museum itself, she could feel how the knot in her stomach grew even tighter, making her have to count in between breaths to not worsen it as Link pushed open the door with his shoulder, waiting for her and Ganondorf to enter before stepping inside himself.

Zelda had, if she were to say so herself, seen plenty of museums during her life. But even then, there was something about the sight of the entrance hall, how the room seemed to continue on for far longer than what should have been possible, Zelda craning her neck to look up at the ceiling high above her that had been decorated with a swirl of colours that bled together to form the outlines of the Golden Goddesses, Nayru’s blue gown moving gracefully from the green of Farore’s hair and into Din’s deep red fire, that made her have to pause for a moment to take it all in.

“And who might you be?”

The unknown voice came from a point to her right, but before Zelda got the chance to do more than jerk away, her arms already halfway raised in an attempt at protecting herself, she felt Ganondorf’s hand on her shoulder. A second later, she had been pulled backwards, Ganondorf not wasting a moment before stepping in front of both her and Link. From the way Link blinked a couple of times, seemingly unsure about where to look, Zelda knew that Ganondorf had also just grabbed him to shove him behind himself.

But for as much as she appreciated the attempt at protecting them, the curiosity was quick to defeat the fear rising from the pit of her stomach, making Zelda take a step to the side. It wasn’t much, not enough to fully render Ganondorf’s attempt at protecting her meaningless, but even then, that short glimpse of the person who had only just entered the room was enough to allow it to burn an impression of itself onto her eyelids.

They were wearing some sort of jumpsuit. That was the only word Zelda had that was able to encompass the patches of grey and reddish orange that had seemingly been sewn together in a hurry to create the clothes they were wearing, Zelda already seeing a couple of holes where stitches had seemingly come lose, and even then, it did not come close to fully describe the way the sight of the person made her blood feel like it had become ice in just the short moment it took for her to note that very detail, the mask that covered their face, the symbol of the Sheikah that had been painted onto it with clumsy strokes turned on its head, somehow only serving to make it all even more like a scene from out of her nightmares.

“Uh.” from how Ganondorf was standing, having squared his shoulders, it was clear how the hesitation in the word was not what he had meant to show and he was indeed quick at regaining control, far quicker than Zelda would have been, standing up a bit straighter to stare down at the person in front of them. “We were just passing through the city when we noticed the light in the windows here. That made us wonder—well, who it might be that are in here.”

It took a while before Zelda was able to name just what made it so eerie to look at the other person, but once she did, she could not understand why she had not realised it before. It was the mask, the mask and the way it covered their entire face, leaving Zelda unable to try to guess what they were thinking as they stood there, their head turned towards Ganondorf, but the mask giving Zelda no way of knowing whether or not they were indeed looking at him or ability to properly try to gauge what his reaction would be.

It felt like a year might have passed by the time the stranger finally bowed their head, the gesture seeming oddly stiff as they stood up straight again. With a tone of voice that did not reveal any emotions, neither joy at seeing that there were still other people left alive as well, nor the possibility of disappointment at the realisation that they were there, having walked into the museum Zelda was only just then beginning to think might have been claimed by the group, the person gestured towards a point behind them. “I see. In that case, I believe that an introduction is in order. We—” the motion grew, the hand making a grandiose sweeping motion before the person let it fall back to rest against their side, “are the Yiga Clan.”

They turned at once, Zelda already knowing what she would see from the way it felt like tiny needles were poking at the back of her neck, the sensation of being watched sending a shiver down her back. It was too late, Zelda knew that, but even then, that was the moment she realised just why she had been feeling so on edge since having first entered the city, what the atmosphere around her had reminded her of. It had been the days she had spent looking over her shoulder, convinced that she was being followed and observed, but without a way of proving it to herself. That was the feeling that had washed over her upon entering the city, just as it was the sensation that overwhelmed her now that she spun around to see that about ten other people dressed in the same orange and grey clothes as the person in front of them, all of them wearing the same mask with the upside-down symbol of the Sheikah, had sneaked up behind them while they had been too preoccupied with trying to guess who the person in front of them was and what they might do next to notice anything else. They had moved so silently that even now, Zelda looking directly at them, she could not recall any moment where the sound of footsteps against the stony floor underneath her feet should have alerted her to the fact that they were not alone anymore.

Behind her, Zelda could feel Ganondorf tense a bit more, his attempt at figuring out what to do next seeping into the air around him as they stood there, surrounded by the unknown people whose expressions were not visible to them at all, being outnumbering by them by more than three to one. He must have reached the same conclusion, have taken in the situation and realising that, no matter what, even if the group would turn out to be hostile towards any outsiders, their best option would be to act like they were not aware of the possibility to at least try to create a moment of surprise in case of an attack, for even though Zelda could see the twitch that ran along his arm as he sent a short glance in her direction, there was nothing else about Ganondorf’s demeanour as he turned back towards the first person to have spoken to them that would suggest that he was worried about the risk of them being attacked.

“Ah,” Ganondorf said, adding a slight chuckle onto the sound, “I see that you have already found fellow survivors. In any case, we are happy to see that, truly. I—I know what it must have been like before that happened, how lonely it can be when you are on your own out there.”

The person in front of them remained silent and still, and, not for the first time, Zelda found herself wondering if this might be their way of handling what had passed, if they had somehow stumbled upon some sort of cult formed in the aftermath of the old world being destroyed. Though she would by no means pretend to be an expert on the subject, there was something about their voice, devoid of any emotion, and the way they moved silently, dressed to form a single impression rather than wearing three different sets of stained and sweaty clothes the way she, Ganondorf, and Link did, that felt like it was an apt description for the impression they gave off as they stood there, Zelda finding herself twirling on the spot to try to keep track of all of them, both the group that had come to form a semicircle behind them, their heads turned towards the person in front of them, and that very same person who was still an unreadable presence in the room with their mask and general lack of body language.

“I see.” the stranger said the words without any chance to their intonation. It could perhaps have sounded bored if it had not been for the chilling effect of Zelda not being able to look into their eyes to see if she would see the same blank expression in there as the one that was dripping from their voice. “However, we are not like you in the slightest.”

“Oh.” taking a step back, Ganondorf was quick to recover, once again letting his voice grow firm. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean,” the stranger said, “that we were never separated. We always knew that the rest of our group was out there, waiting for us to find them. Once the hourglasses turned to let the cycle begin anew again, it was simply a matter of us reaching out to find the rest.” they turned around, pointing towards the hallway they had just been blocking. “We can tell you more about it while we show the three of you our work.”

It was not an offer they could decline. That much became clear as Zelda turned to grab Link’s hand, only to see that the people behind them had moved forwards, leaving them with no choice other than to follow the person Zelda assumed must be their leader if they wished to avoid finding out what might happen if they managed to reach them and found that they moved too slowly. With the feeling of being watched still lying right beneath the surface in her mind, Zelda obeyed the implicit order without a word, pulling a frozen Link along as the leader of the Yiga Clan began to lead them down the hallway. If nothing else, perhaps seeing the building the Yiga Clan appeared to view as theirs might be able to grant her more knowledge about them, and so, Zelda made sure to remain alert as the rest of the clan moved to follow along after them, forming a barrier between her, Ganondorf, and Link and the nearest escape route.

For all that had happened outside, the museum was in a surprisingly good condition. That was the first thing Zelda noted as they began to move down a hallway lined with paintings, some of them consisting of the yellow and orange hues of flames as they showed a castle burning, the flames rising up against a deep blue sky. There was no dust beneath her feet, no cobwebs as she risked a glance up towards the ceiling, nothing to suggest that all upkeep and money towards repairs not to even mention actual repairs must have stopped the moment the disaster had struck. With how the people around her moved without a sound, none of them seeming to feel the need to ask where they were going, Zelda was sure exactly who had been the reason for that. But that still left her with the question of why, why a group like the one behind them had decided that their new task after the end of the world should be to come to Hyrule National Museum to protect and care for it. Granted, with how she had been willing to follow Ganondorf across Faron Sea, Link joining them after minimal discussion, Zelda had no right to begin to question the decision, nothing that would give her the ability to speak out against finding hope in something that was, objectively, not helpful in their current situation, but even then, she could not help to look at the almost garishly orange colour that covered patches of their leader’s clothes and wonder what it all meant.

At her side, Link had yet to let go of her hand. Sneaking a glance out of the corner of her eyes, Zelda found herself wondering if he was really aware of what was happening around them. The empty look in his eyes as he walked alongside her, the lax grip he returned her attempt at giving his hand a little squeeze with letting her know that the only reason he was even following along was that she refused to let go of him, would certainly seem to indicate that that was note the case.

She should do something about it, Zelda was aware of that. Should things take a turn for the worse, they were already outnumbered. The last thing they would need was for one of them to not be fully aware of where they were or how they had got there. But try as she might, Zelda could not bring herself to say something, not in the suffocating quiet of the museum, the sound of three set of footsteps being all that brought a rhythmic pause to the silence.

It must have begun to affect her mind, for as they reached the end of the hallway, the stranger in front of them turning left without a word, the paintings of destruction and flames soon giving way to sculptures Zelda could not remember having ever heard about before, giants rising up next to her, so tall that they almost touched the ceiling, she found herself having to reach over to scratch the back of her hand. It made no sense—with how they had spent ages simply walking next to one another for the past couple of days, Zelda knew that she would have noticed it if she had touched anything that might explain the itchiness covering the back of her right hand—and still, she continued to scratch it, Link soon looking down at her hand, the movement having seemingly pulled him back to the reality around him.

Frowning slightly, Link lifted his gaze, soon looking directly at her. In his eyes, Zelda almost thought she saw a question, but before she got the chance to try to figure out just what it might be, Link had torn his gaze away from her again, once more going back to staring straight ahead at where Ganondorf was still forming a barrier between the two of them and the possible leader of the clan. With the people walking behind them, it was a gesture that would probably turn out to have been in vain, should the worst happen, but even then, Zelda still found herself thankful for it as the leader broke through the silence.

Nodding towards one of the statues to their right, a man standing with one foot on a stone, a trident in his hand as he looked towards what Zelda assumed to be an unseen enemy from the way his face was contorted into an expression that was not quite a frown nor a smile, the stranger turned towards them, not letting the fact that they could no longer see where they were going slow them down. “As you might have noticed, we have moved quite a few pieces from museums throughout Hyrule over here. That statue, for example, used to belong to the Museum of Mythologies in Deya Village.”

So that was what had made it feel like there was something deeply out of place to be found wherever she looked in the room. Glancing back towards the statue as they passed it, now that she was aware of it, Zelda could see how it was not placed as parallel to the walls as the rest of the exhibits. She had not known exactly what the reason for that was, but as the leader fell silent, Zelda instinctively knew not to mention her confusion, instead nodding at them with what she hoped was a smile that did not reveal the tense knot of anxiety in her stomach.

It was impossible to know whether or not she had succeeded, the person in front of them merely continuing without acknowledging her reaction. Or, at least, they did not react in a way they would have been able to see. Passing through a hallway, they led them all into a room that opened up on both sides, the walls rising up high above their heads.

Turning her head to the side, Zelda tried to guess what might have been grand enough to create the need for such an imposing room, but either the Yiga Clan had also moved pieces out of the museum, or she was missing something, for no matter how much she tried to spot a statue large enough to warrant the grandeur of the room, she could not see anything as the leader of the Yiga Clan held up their hand, gesturing for them to stop just in front of where a couple of steps led up to a slightly raised stage.

They obeyed immediately, Zelda walking up to stand next to Ganondorf as they all stood there, silently watching the stranger in front of them. There was no need for her to ask to know that they were all waiting to see what would happen next, whether or not they were right to feel like they were only waiting for an attack to be directed towards them.

“See,” the leader said, turning from them again, “after the cycle began again, we knew that it would fall to us to prepare for what would need to be done. We could not allow the relics of Hyrule to remain in dusty rooms in museums scattered across the lands—they had to be found and retrieved so that they could fulfil their destinies.”

So they were trying to save the relics from becoming ruins. Looking around her, Zelda tried to bridge the idea of them being harmless hobby-historians with the clothes and the masks, the connection unable to fully let her forget about the feeling of having been observed. If she was to believe that that, the wish to protect and keep the relics, was all that drove them, then what would they have come to Hyrule Castle Town for, granted that they were indeed the very same people as the ones she had felt staring at her wherever she went? Try as she might, Zelda could not think of an answer.

Perhaps the same was the case for Ganondorf and Link, their attempts at making sense of what was going on around them coming to an end, unable to produce an answer, or at least, none of them said anything. Instead, they all simply stood there for a moment before the leader began to speak again.

“I see that none of you understand what I am referring to. Maybe the times have robbed you of your sight… or, maybe…” though they could not see the face of the leader, their voice made it clear that they found the idea reprehensible, “perhaps it will take fate even longer to lead the chosen ones to us. In that case, I suppose that you are simply the pawns in this game.” everything about the way they let their intonation drop a little, just barely enough to bring an end to the monotonous tone that had characterised their words before, let Zelda know that they did not wish for that to be the case, but as much as she knew that it all depended on her being quick to refute the idea she did not known what meant, she could only stand there, silent, as the stranger continued. “Still, I suppose that we ought to give you a chance to prove us wrong. After all, if we are right, it would mean that our leader has returned.” with a flourish, the stranger stepped aside, revealing that the little raised section of the floor behind him had not, as Zelda had assumed, simply been yet another part of an empty room.

Instead, there was a pedestal rising up from the floor. It wasn’t tall, barely noticeable on its own as it rose up a few centimetres from the tiled floor. The thing that really made it stand out, what made Zelda understand why the stranger had been so careful to position themselves just in front of them, was the sword that seemed to have been trust into the stone, the hilt sticking out of it, blue and a deep purple twisting around it. As they stood there, Zelda knowing that both Ganondorf and Link had found themselves in the same kind of frozen awe as her, a ray of the sun found its way in through the windows above them, bathing the sword in a golden glow.

“Link!”

Zelda was brought back to reality by the sound of Ganondorf hissing the name. Looking towards him, it took a few seconds too long for her to realise the connection between Ganondorf’s outstretched hand, his furrowed brows, and panicked look and the fact that Link had moved, no longer standing next to him. Instead, he was already halfway across the floor, walking towards the pedestal and the sword with steps that seemed so even, so precise, that Zelda could almost not believe that the body of the person in front of her really belonged to the same person who had been able to chase off a bear, the one who had pushed the trolley to get it to the block of flats in time, the trolley almost veering off the road when he had pushed it. But it was Link. There was no mistaking the duvet jacket, nor the dirty blond hair that caught the light the moment he stepped up onto the platform.

He wasn’t stopped.

Waiting, torn between the sense of not being able to bring herself to breathe as the seconds became longer around her and knowing that she might have to prepare herself for a fight any moment now, Zelda waited for the second the Yiga Clan would move, either to protect their relics or to attack them specifically, but turning towards them with hostility either way.

Only, it did not happen. Rather than rushing forwards to try use their numbers as a weapon against Link before he would be able to reach what was undoubtedly a source of pride for them, as Zelda looked towards the one she had deemed the leader, they were still right where they had been a moment ago, their mask keeping her from being able to guess their thoughts. But there was no need for it. It took a fraction of a second for it all to come together, the days of paranoid conviction that she was being watched, their behaviour and the way they had made sure to surround them the moment they had entered the museum, the cryptic way of referring to the relics, and now this, the fact that they did not do anything to keep Link from advancing towards the sword, reaching out for it, the sunlight he was bathed in almost seeming to grow sharper, to form the single thought of ‘danger’, but even that was enough to make it all too late by the time Zelda felt herself being pulled forwards, towards Link, raising up her hand in a desperate attempt at stopping him, the words catching in her throat as he reached out to touch the sword.

The world exploded in a flash of blindingly white light.

All Zelda could do was to close her eyes, the light still following her as she pressed her hands against her face. From somewhere next to her, she heard a yelp, but there were no thoughts left in her brain that would have been able to try to analyse who had been the one to make the sound, what it meant. All that existed to her for those moments was the light. The light and then the feeling of being torn on multiple directions all at once, spinning through the air as she struggled to find a foothold.

And then, above it all, there was voice ringing in her ear, the feeling of being pushed forwards, towards the pedestal and the sword, of being told to reach out towards Link even as the light filled every last part of the room, carried along as an echo of its whispers, words Zelda could not understand but still knew the meaning of whirling around her.

Finally, then the light abated, disappearing just as quickly as it had first appeared. Blinking to get rid of the afterimage of the flash, Zelda found that she had fallen to the floor in her desperation to rid herself of the sensation of being lost, the coldness of the tiles soon returning to flow though her hands as she pushed herself back up.

It was then that, almost like the world had decided to let the moment of total blindness be followed by a kick to the stomach, Zelda felt how all air left her lungs.

Link had pulled out the sword. Rather than standing in front of her, leaning down slightly to hold onto the hilt of the sword, he was now standing up straight, the sword raised up above his head, the metal of the blade itself catching the light and leaving them with no delusions about the possibility of the knife edge being dull.

Slowly, looking almost like he could not quite believe what had happened either, Link lowered his arm, the light around him fading as he did so, to instead bring the sword up in front of him to study the hilt like the answer to just what had happened would be found there.

“What…?” his voice was small, but in the silence of the room it was as audible as a yell would have been.

Zelda would have had no trouble imagining that the universe itself was stretching and bending time to make up for the long seconds of blindness, as several things happened all at once the next moment.

“It’s them!” the leader of the Yiga Clan waved towards Link. “They are here! You know what your duty is!”

Metal flashed, and the next thing Zelda knew, the wall of silent people that had implicitly let them know not to turn around or try to leave the museum again, had become a row of individual people, all of them jumping back into a fighting stance, all of them armed with a kind of rounded blade, leaving Zelda to, for a brief, illogical moment, wonder where they had kept their weapons to keep them from seeing them before that second.

However, the sight of the grey of the metal did not give her another moment to ponder the question, not as the adrenaline filled her body in an instant, making her already have begun to sprint by the time Ganondorf had turned around to grab onto her arm. Spinning around so quickly that Zelda felt almost like she was about to fly through the air as she fought to follow along, Ganondorf ran through the room, leaping up the couple of stairs leading up to the platform to grab Link before jumping down on the other side, Link and Zelda both trying their best to follow along as he pulled them with him down another hallway.

Behind her, Zelda could just barely make out the sound of footfalls. With how the Yiga Clan had moved without making a sound before, she tried her best to keep herself from wondering just what it might mean for their chances of escape, not even to mention what might happen to them in the event that they were caught, the gleam of their weapons in the sun seeming like a picture she would never be able to rid her brain of again. But she had to. As they bolted down the hallway, Ganondorf barely avoiding stumbling over a vase on a pedestal, Zelda hearing how it fell to the ground with a crash behind them, it could not have been more evident that there could be no room in her mind for any thoughts that were not directly related to just what they could do to escape the museum and the Yiga Clan.

“Watch out—around here!”

Letting out a strangled warning, Ganondorf tugged at her arm, bringing Zelda just close enough to him to keep her from running headfirst into the tall stone tablet in front of them as he made a sudden turn to the right to bring them down another hallway. As they dashed past painting after painting depicting various scenes during the Hyrulean Civil War, Zelda slowly began to let her body move of its own accord, allowing her to try to see through the layer of adrenaline and fear to assess their chances.

Fact: the Yiga Clan outnumbered them. Also fact: they had no way of knowing whether or not they would even be safe if they were to make it outside. As much as Zelda wanted to believe that the Yiga Clan was so dedicated to the museum that they would not dare leave it, as she turned around yet another corner, desperately trying to figure out just where they were in relation to an exit, she knew that it would be foolish to assume that that was the case. And then there was the cryptic talk of cycles and the indication that the Yiga Clan had awaited their arrival. The latter was not something Zelda could do anything about, but from what she could see, the only possible answer to the two first points would be to try to put as much distance as possible between their group and the Yiga Clan behind them to allow them to flee the city without being followed.

Forcing herself to push through the feeling of her legs being about to give up on her, Zelda pushed herself to run faster, soon allowing her to not only keep up with Ganondorf, but also move past him, motioning for him and Link to follow her as she found herself sprinting down another hall of statues. “Follow me! I think I have an idea!” she did not bother to turn around to make sure that they were indeed following her; the sound of heavy footfalls, the slightly wheezing sounds of all three of them struggling to continue to run, and the Yiga Clan right there behind them, sounding like they were not even getting a little bit tired from running, echoing in her ears as Zelda sprinted down the hallway.

If they could just get outside, if they could reach Epona and the shopping trolley, though not completely even, at least their chances would not look quite as grim when compared to the numbers and the weapons of the Yiga. Granted, an axe was in no way comparable to the metallic glint that flashed behind her, the reflection of it visible in a display case containing what seemed to be an ancient sculpture of the Triforce as Zelda ran around it, ducking through another doorway, Link and Ganondorf following right behind, but at least they would have a chance.

Zelda realised her mistake the moment she entered the room. Rows upon rows of what appeared to be weapons from the first war with the Zora’s Domain lined the walls, little stands enclosed in glass cases that had been scattered throughout the room displaying the weapons that could not find a home against the wall, their sharp edges and spearheads not allowing Zelda even the slightest hope that they were not still as deadly as when they had been used, perhaps even a little bit more deadly now if the bacteria that must have gattered in the room would have been able to reach them within their exhibition cases. But more than any of that, she knew that they had just lost all chances of escape as she looked towards the far end of the room where she had expected to see a doorway leading into the entrance hall to instead see a solid wall.

The seconds they had left before the Yiga Clan would be upon them were running out, that much was clear from the sound of metal cutting through the air, but it seemed that there was more truth to Zelda’s theory of how panic would make people freeze than to her father’s adage about how a bit of panic always made the fear of failure have to let go of its hold, for as she stood there, seeing the fear that must be visible in her eyes reflected in Ganondorf’s and Link’s expressions, Zelda had never felt as lost as she did right then, the realisation that if she did not figure something out now, they were going to die, washing in over her.

“I—I am so sorry.” Zelda winced the moment the words left her mouth. The apology felt hollow, but then again, what could she have said that would have made the situation any better?

But, somehow, rather than looking down at the ground, giving in to the same kind of hopeless apathy as Zelda had, Ganondorf looked over at her, the fear giving way to another emotion entirely, the expression in his eyes becoming fiery in a way she had never seen before. “Don’t.” Ganondorf looked over at her, his attention not leaving her for even a moment as he continued. “Don’t apologise, and certainly not in a way that makes it sound like we are going to lose. They are out here, but we have the weapons. Link.” turning to look over at Link, Zelda followed Ganondorf’s line of sight, instantly spotting what she had missed before as Ganondorf continued with a gesture towards the sword in Link’s hand, the purple and blue design of the hilt making it stand out against the weapons around them. “I don’t know why they were so interested in that sword or why you pulling it out of the pedestal was the thing that convinced them that we are the people they were after, but fact is that we have a sword. Use it. As for the rest of us, we will have to make do with antiquities.”

There was a fraction of a second where Zelda was almost certain she could see Ganondorf steel himself, squaring his shoulders as he spun to size up the exhibition case next to them, the glass separating them from a couple of sleek spears, the long lines of them instantly marking them as being made by the Zoras in the late twenty-third century, before the very last of her thoughts had to leave to instead make space for the sound of glass shattering beneath the impact of Ganondorf’s foot and the sharp grunt of pain as Ganondorf, not wasting even a second, rushed directly into the shower of falling glass, picking up two spears, to throw one towards Zelda while keeping the other one.

Zelda was barely able to catch it in time, her mind still fighting to catch up with what had just happened. All in all, they could barely have been in the room for more than ten seconds, and yet, it felt like she had lived out an entire life in there. However, she did not get a chance to work through everything that had just happened, for the next second, the Yiga Clan was upon them.

They attacked all at once, rushing into the room as one big wave of grey and orange, the blades in their hands already positioned for an attack as they reduced what little distance still separated them to mere metres, centimetres, and then nothing at all. Barely managing to bring up her spear, using it to block an attack the fatality of which she had no illusions about, Zelda felt how the metal connected with the spear, the vibrations almost being enough to instinctively make her drop the weapon as they travelled through the metal. But she held onto it. Gritting her teeth and forcing herself to find every last bit of strength in the adrenaline that came to fill her entire world, Zelda pushed back against the Yiga, taking a moment to find her balance before delivering a kick to the Yiga’s abdomen. Or at least, she would have, had it not been for the fact that, by the time she had gone through with the motion, the attacker was no longer where they had been just a fraction of a second ago. Rather than muscle, all Zelda’s foot hit was air, and even though she hurried to follow through by letting the momentum carry her a step forwards rather than attempting to fight it, Zelda already knew that she had been thrown off balance.

The next attack came much quicker than the first, this time aimed at her legs. Once again, Zelda barely managed to deflect it with her spear, the feeling of metal against metal making her arms shake. She was exhausted. It was simple as that. The days on the road, all of it preceded by weeks of eating solely to not disrespect everyone who had not been lucky enough to survive, it was all was catching up with her now as she found herself forced backwards, the wall behind her coming closer and closer with every second. Before long, there would be nowhere to go in response to the attacks, nothing to do other than to let the Yiga member continue to chip away at the last bit of energy she had left. And she was only faced with one attacker. From what Zelda could see, risking being taken by surprise for a moment to cast a glance across the room, her eyes instantly finding Ganondorf’s bright red hair and Link’s green jacket among the sea of grey and orange, it would appear that most of the Yiga Clan members had focused on Link, forcing him to back away, the sword catching the light in the room as he swung it back and forth.

“Don’t attack his highness!”

Even as Zelda felt the spear slip out of her grasp, the horrible second being made even longer by her stomach feeling like it had left her stomach as she threw herself forwards, barely managing to catch it and spin around to meet the next slash, she could still recognise the voice of the person she had assumed was the leader of the Yiga Clan.

They were yelling, their voice carried up above the fight to reach all of them, and still, it felt just as monotonous as before. “The goddess is not important, but don’t let any harm come to our leader! As for the hero, he is the one he truly wants dead! Go after the one who drew the Master Sword, for he is the one whose destruction we are dedicated to!”

Zelda sensed the change before she felt it. She had been distracted, torn away from what was right in front of her by the words, and now, she paid for it. Moving backwards, Zelda felt the glass case against her back, the edge of it just barely reaching her head as she steadied herself, trying her best to prepare herself for the next attack.

It never came.

Slowly allowing herself to focus on anything that was not the spear in her sweaty hands or when the next attack would come, Zelda felt how the world expanded around her, now consisting of more than just the person directly in front of her and the blade they wielded.

She felt it, felt everything happen, but still, there was nothing she could do to change it. From across the room, Zelda saw how the Yiga member she had been fighting mere seconds ago was already rushing through the room, joining the rest of the Yiga Clan as they launched a united attack against Link who was still swinging the sword he had pulled from the pedestal—the Master Sword, perhaps, Zelda’s mind supplied her with, the implications of what it meant for Link and just whom the leader had been referring to a moment ago making her blood run cold—at them when one of his attackers was able to duck beneath the blade, reducing the distance between them to one they could cover with their own weapons.

Barely dodging the attack, Link stumbled. It was only a moment, but it was still more than enough to give the Yiga Clan the opening they had been waiting for, the one that made the attacker’s swipe towards Link’s legs hit him directly in the hollow of the knee, sending him tumbling to the ground.

A wordless scream tore its way up Zelda’s throat as she watched the Yiga Clan step aside, allowing their leader to step forwards, their blade raised skyward as they bowed their head. Even from where Zelda stood, both the angle and the mask of the Yiga member keeping her from being able to see their face, she knew that they were enjoying it, the slow, almost catlike movements of them letting their blade reach an apex above their head showing how they revelled in it.

“And now, dear hero, I think that it is time that we let you depart from this world to let the cycle reach its end.” their voice was low, but what truly sent chills down Zelda’s back was that the fact that, for the first time since they had met them, she could hear actual emotions in their voice, the glee practically dripping from their voice as they stood there.

All that separated them was what could barely be more than twenty metres and a couple of display cases, but as Zelda saw the blade begin its descent, she already knew that she could do nothing but watch. Searching for Link’s gaze to give him one last apology for having been the one to lead them into the room, Zelda saw the fear shine in his eyes, and had it not been for how she doubted her body had retained the knowledge of how to do anything other than stand there in silent horror, she was sure that she would have vomited. Perhaps she should have closed her eyes, but even if she had been able to, she could not deny that she owed it to Link to at least look at him one last time.

“Get away from him!”

A blur of red and the sound of metal clattering to the ground filled the room.

Blinking, Zelda knew that she must be dreaming. There was no other way to explain what had just happened. But she blinked and blinked twice and the scene in front of her did not change to reflect her fears. Ganondorf was still standing there, his spear raised, silent fury clear on his face as he looked at the leader of the Yiga, letting a heartbeat pass before he turned the weapon in his hands to let the spearhead point directly towards their heart.

“Don’t touch him!” Ganondorf growled the word. As Zelda looked at him, she could not spot even the faintest trace of the man she had come to know. Where his eyes had always seemed soft beneath any steely look or harsh glances, there was now only pure fire and anger to be found in his expression, and just as the certain softness that had always accompanied his movements had now disappeared, leaving him to stand like a boulder between Link and the Yiga Clan, his voice had changed as well, becoming as sharp as the blade Zelda knew had been the thing to produce the metallic clatter as it had fallen to the ground.

Inching closer to the scene, Zelda made sure to regain her grasp on her spear. The rest of the world might feel like it had stopped, but even then, Zelda would have been a fool to ignore the lines of tense muscles that were visible beneath the greys and oranges that made up the Yiga Clan’s clothes.

The next second proved that she was right.

Letting out a sound that was halfway between a chuckle and an outright snarl, the leader of the Yiga Clan stepped back, away from Ganondorf, voice rising once again. “I should have known that you would have fallen to the turn of the time as well!” turning towards the rest of the people around them, the stranger made a sweeping gesture, seemingly trying to encompass every last one of them as they spoke. “They have been able to corrupt even the strongest, a crime we must not forgive! Attack!”

The effect was immediate, Zelda soon finding herself faced with two members, the flashes of metal coming every second, Zelda having only barely enough time to block them, her arms still shaking from the last impact by the time she had to bring up the spear once more to stop another attack from being able to meet its intended target. But the moment where pure adrenaline and panic would not be enough to save her anymore was coming closer and closer with every passing second and every attack that forced her to push what little strength she had left out into her arms to keep herself from dropping the spear, and as Zelda found herself once again having to back away to give herself enough time to ready herself in between attacks, she knew that the battle was about to come to an end.

It the middle of all that, the sound of glass shattering around her barely registered in her mind, the pain of the window behind her breaking to let glass fall down on her mild in comparison to the scream she heard echo through the room. A single glance in the direction of the source of the sound was all she could risk, but even that was enough for her to see the long, red line that had been drawn onto Ganondorf’s upper arm, the blood dripping from one of the spikes that covered the blade his attacker still held above their head.

And then grey, blue, and white appeared in the never-ending sea of grey and orange.

Blocking another stroke, all Zelda could do as she saw someone rush past her, moving so quickly that had it not been for the clatter of metal meeting metal, she would not have known that they had drawn their weapon in time to meet the raised blade of the Yiga who had been about to attack her. Squinting, still lost in the hope that the attempt at blocking out anything that was not the action of the person directly in front of her would help her answer the question of just who the person who had so willingly put themselves between her and her attacker was, Zelda had to admit defeat as the figure in front of her continued to move, a bright, blue light flashing as the Yiga member fell to the floor in a heap of grey and orange, the unknown person who had seemingly appeared from out of nowhere but probably through the window that was now left as a gaping hole in the wall behind her not wasting a moment before moving away from her once again. Instead, she grasped the opportunity to finally get a chance to try get a general view of the situation with both hands, rising to the tip of her toes to look out over the violence that continued to move back and forth through the room, the blues, greys, and whites that had just been mixed into the sight making it seem less like lava coming to melt everything in its way and more like ebb and flow of an ocean, alluring while still being deadly in its own way.

She spotted Ganondorf near the wall. Kneeling down on the ground, he had his arm pressed against his chest, his right hand coming up to hold it there, the long red line that ran across his triceps already dripping with blood. Next to him, Link had moved over to stand between him and the immediate danger of one of the Yiga thinking to turn around to attack them once more, sword held high and stance balanced, ready to strike.

However, the seconds passed, Zelda slowly beginning to feel like she was capable of things that exceeded the immediate reaction of ducking and moving away from the sharp edge of a blade, a thought that allowed her to run to the others, keeping herself close to the wall to avoid having to take another unnecessary step towards where the violence seemed to have gathered in the middle of the room.

Crouching down next to them, Zelda saw the brief second where Link’s eyes flashed with anger, his grip on the sword growing tighter before he recognised her, but, for as much as part of her wanted to assure him that all would be well, there was no time to handle any of it, leaving her to instead reach out towards Ganondorf’s uninjured arm, trying her best to be gentle as she pulled him up from the floor, letting him place his weight against her shoulder as she began leading both him and Link towards the door. Behind her, the sound of swords meeting swords continued, drowning out her words as she tried to make herself heard above the cacophony of noises. “Link! We are being followed—let me speak—I am going to lead them away from you two! Take Ganondorf, go find Epona, and get away from here!”

She had hoped that he would not notice what she had not said, but of course, Link did, tilting his head to the side as he stepped forwards, holding up Ganondorf as Zelda ducked beneath his arm. “And then what about you?”

“I will be fine!” already halfway running, Link and Ganondorf following along after her, their steps against the tiled flooring echoing around her, the sound soon joined by another set of footfalls as she pushed Ganondorf and Link through a doorway, Zelda tried her best to sound like she was able to believe that herself. “Just go—I will catch up with you in a moment!”

After that, Zelda did not bother to make sure that they had understood her. All that mattered was the fact that Link obeyed her, moving away from the doorway, Ganondorf leaning against his side as Link wrapped an arm around his waist to keep him upright as their little group parted ways, Zelda continuing on her own down the hallway.

In the relative quiet that filled her surroundings as she turned around the corner, moving out of sight of both the Yiga Clan and the unknown group that had appeared moments ago, Zelda knew that she had been right to think that they were being followed. The footfalls were soft, and perhaps she would not have heard them had it not been for the adrenaline flowing through her veins, letting every second appear to be slightly longer, making her even more aware of the crash that followed her spear no doubt knocking some priceless artefact to the floor as she flung it to the side, trusting herself to flee more than to fight as she turned around corners and ran through corridor after corridor, the follower never more than a few seconds behind her. A couple of times, Zelda was almost certain that she saw a flash of blue out of the corner of her eyes, but she did not stop to make sure that it was more than just a product of the fear of being caught, instead throwing herself to the side and continuing to sprint away from every last sound and movement around her.

The museum was a labyrinth. In the world before , Zelda might have been able to see the wisdom in the twisted hallways and the way she would move from room to room, making her way through the centuries of battles, art, and culture, some of the objects clearly out of place, but without leaving her with a way of knowing whether it was due to them having been brought there by the Yiga Clan or having been knocked over by either herself, Ganondorf, Link, the Yiga Clan, or the unknown group, nor did it matter to her as she pushed herself to reach her limit. In those minutes of bolting through rooms of relics and paintings, the only thing that held any importance to Zelda was the fact that she had to find an exit that would not take her towards Ganondorf and Link and the risk of her pursuer changing their target to instead go after Ganondorf now that he was hurt, so Zelda pushed it all aside to instead focus on the placement of the windows in the rooms she passed, counting to herself as she entered a new room to find that, rather than the windows being located on her left-hand side, they were now directly in front of her. In other words, she must be near the corner of the building.

Turning right, Zelda found herself in what appeared to be some kind of gift shop, souvenirs covered in dust being on display all throughout the room. But more importantly, the unlit sign above the door to her left let her know that she had finally found another exit. Rushing forward, giving herself a moment to grab onto a rack full of colouring books and pull it towards her as she passed, Zelda could only hope that it would not turn out to be a dead end as she reached for the door handle. It was like ice to the touch, but Zelda could not have cared less that as she wrapped her hand around it and pushed. The door sprung open, and with the sound of the person behind her trying their best to make their way through the mess of colouring books and crayons still only a couple of metres away from her, Zelda continued forwards, stepping out into the streets of Clock Town.

The city looked the exact same as when they had first decided to enter the museum. Though it felt like a lifetime had passed in there, as Zelda wasted a precious fraction of a second taking in the sun’s position in the sky, it was clear that, despite everything, it was a matter of minutes since they had last been out there with both Epona and the promise of their shopping trolley full of supplies to give them some sense of security. As she turned left, putting as much distance between herself and where Ganondorf and Link had hopefully reached Epona and the trolley, Zelda could only hope that they would be able to go back to that moment in time again.

Not for the first time, she was struck by how large the city was, but now, rather than being a source of annoyance as they tried to find an entrance into the city, it was what allowed Zelda to try to hold onto the hope of being able to outrun the person chasing her, never running straight for more than a couple of seconds before she would turn to the side to continue down some alleyway or any other path that allowed her to increase her chances of losing her pursuer.

Little by little, her plan seemed to work, the sound of footsteps behind her slowly growing less and less intense as she put more distance between them. But even then, Zelda did not slow down, did not allow herself to think of anything that would have broken her focus or allowed her to stop to notice the feeling of fire in her legs and lungs or the exhaustion settling into every last cell of her body. Instead, she continued, soon reaching what she deemed to be the western gate.

There, Zelda stopped for a moment, giving herself a second to try to go over her options. Outside, Zelda could see the flat expanse that was Hyrule Field, the grass not providing her with any cover as it lead down towards the rushing waters of a river, her mind connecting the sight of patch of tall grass separating the river itself from the rest of its surroundings with the memory of Regencia River, Zelda unable to tell whether it was true or not. It was a bad idea to go out there, one that might render those last few minutes of putting distance between herself and the person chasing her meaningless, but as Zelda felt her feet carry her forwards, she knew that it was a risk she would have to take, regardless of what the consequences might be. No matter what, staying in Clock Town where she had already come closer to dying that when she had found herself face to face with a bear was not an option. So, trying her best to stay low in the landscape, Zelda sprinted away from the town walls of Clock Town, a halfway thought-out plan taking her across the field and towards the river, the sight of the tall grass next to the flow of water thankfully providing her with just a sliver of hope that her plan might work as the sound of another set of footsteps behind her pushed her to move even faster.

Zelda reached the river in moments, continuing to run next to it, the tall grass hitting her in the face as she tried her best to push it aside. Though it should not have been nearly enough to hide her, as Zelda forced herself to go against the instinct of moving in a straight line, instead waiting until she could not see anything other than green as she looked to the side before making a sharp turn towards the river, allowing herself to move just a bit slower, just enough to not break the blades of grass as she pushed them to the side and for her to place her feet carefully in front of her, letting the mud soften the sound, stopping the moment she could no longer see her own footprints behind her, she heard how her pursuer continued running forwards, towards the direction of where Zelda would have been if she had continued to run without thinking.

It would not last long. As much as Zelda wanted to pretend that she might have lost the pursuer, fact was that believing that someone who had been able to stand a chance against the Yiga Clan would not realise that she had somehow moved around them was a laughable idea, and so, Zelda looked down at where she had already left deep footprints in the mud that covered the river bank, a plan forming in her head.

Turning towards the direction she hoped would be north, Zelda began to run, giving herself just enough time to run what felt like kilometres but was probably just a few hundred metres before stopping. Then, careful to only step where her own footprints had been pressed into the mud, Zelda began moving back, walking for a few minutes before turning towards the river.

Without giving herself a moment to question both the plan as well as her ability to cover the distance between the fake lead she had just created and the river in a single jump, Zelda mustered up everything tough she could find within her soul and threw herself forwards, leaping directly into the water.

It felt like she had plunged directly into a bucket of ice. For a moment finding herself unable to do anything other than to sink down, her arms coming up to envelop herself in a hug that did not provide her with any warmth, all thoughts in her mind came to a stop, leaving Zelda unable to remember just why she had thought it would be a good idea to head towards the river in the first place. However, it did not take long for it all to come back, Zelda forcing herself to let go and instead allow the icy water to surround her as she pushed against the muddy ground beneath her feet, using her arms to put more distance between herself and the footprints as she let the current carry her downstream, staying underwater for as long as she could, only coming up to breathe before pushing herself under again.

It was quiet down there. Though Zelda had no illusions about the fact that she was still very much in danger and needed to get as far away from both Clock Town as well as the point where she had jumped into the river as she could before the person trying to chase her down would realise that she had both been able to sneak around them and left a fake track for them to follow, the waves around her throwing her around in the river, pushing her down as she would come up for air so that, rather than air, Zelda would find herself coughing up a mouthful of water more than once, there was something almost peaceful about simply following the direction the current took her in. But she had to focus. Though she might have figured out a way to escape, there was still the matter of whether or not Ganondorf and Link had been able to do the same. If they had only been able to reach Epona, then Zelda was certain that Link, with all his talk about having grown up on a ranch with a dream of becoming a horse trainer, would have been able to get them away from the danger. Still, that knowledge did not do much to calm her when Zelda had no way of knowing whether or not they had even got that far, not even to mention the fact that there had not been any time to plan just how they would be able to find each other again.

The river came to a bend, a hill rising up above her to the right and the bank becoming less muddy to her left just as Zelda made the decision that if this was not enough to make the pursuer lose track of her nothing would be.

Pushing against the muddy ground beneath her, Zelda swam to the side, feeling how the act of trying to swim in a line orthogonal to the current was even quicker to drain her of her energy than the cold had been. But she had not come so far just to let herself be carried away by the stream, so Zelda clenched her jaw and refused to give in to her sore muscles and the need to close her eyes for just a second to instead force herself to continue swimming.

It hurt, the water hitting her face as she came up for air, but soon, Zelda could see the river bank only a few metres away from her, the sight bringing with it the hope that she might have made it.

The feeling of solid ground beneath her feet was glorious, Zelda managing to walk the last few metres to reach the riverside before collapsing right next to the river, unable to do anything other than to roll over onto her back and look up at the sky.

It was blue. It wasn’t the dusty blue of a rainfall waiting to happen. Instead, the deep colour seemed to reflect the way the sword had blinded her for a moment, deep and brilliant as Zelda stared up at it. At the back of her mind, the thought that she would have to get up, that she would have to try to head towards the road leading away from Clock Town to try to track down Ganondorf and Link had already formed, trying its best to make her aware of its presence, but perhaps it was yet another result of having just spent ages in the icy waters of the river, or maybe it was merely a side-effect of the exhaustion that had washed in over her, settling into every bone in her body, but as much as she tried to find the strength to sit up, to push herself off the ground, Zelda could not bring herself to move a finger as she lay there, watching the clouds rush by, making the sky seem like a river as they passed by to give off the impression of foam on top of the waves.

She had no idea how long she had lain there when sensation of the ground shaking beneath her alerted her to the arrival of someone else, nor could Zelda bring herself to make a guess, much less to find the strength to sit up or make any effort to prepare herself, should the sound of distant mumbling be a sign that either the Yiga Clan or the other group had been able to circumvent her attempts at hiding her tracks and had now found her. Instead she remained exactly where she was as the sound of rumbling grew louder, the thought that it was far too loud and heavy to belong to the same people who had been able to move almost without a sound registering in her mind without allowing her to truly recognise it for what it meant.

The next thing Zelda knew, the sound of something hitting the ground was followed by a couple of footfalls and then Link’s face appeared in her field of vision, his hair falling in front of his face as he stood there next to her, looking down at her.

Looking back up at him, it took Zelda a moment to realise that he was really there, that the hand she could barely see when she tore her gaze away from the sight of the sun hitting his hair, creating a nimbus around his face, belonged to him and that he was holding it out for her to take.

It felt like it should have been impossible for her to move, but she must have been wrong, for somehow, Zelda saw herself reach out towards him, letting him grab onto her hand and pull her up from the ground. It took another moment of looking blankly at him before she realised that his mouth was moving, Link talking to her, the tone of his voice barely registering in her mind as urgent, but without giving her any chance of making out just what he was saying.

Holding up her free hand in front of her, the energy it cost her making her sway slightly, Link reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder to steady her, Zelda tried to piece the sentence together, her mouth feeling like it refused to cooperate to form the right sounds.

“Are you…?” Link looked at her, something in his eyes telling her that he was halfway expecting for her to collapse if he were to move even slightly. “Zelda, are you all right?”

That was what finally allowed her to find the energy to speak, the fact that she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was not going to stop acting like that, his gentle way of stepping towards her to place more of her weight on himself by slinging his arm under hers yet another reminder of what he must see when he looked at her. Trying her best to nod, Zelda put whatever energy was still left into her voice. “Yes, it’s fine—I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.”

Already, she knew that she was not going to fool anybody into thinking that was really the case. If the mud she knew was clinging to her skin after she had thrown herself onto the ground the moment it was safe for her to do so was not enough to make that obvious, then it was the water still dripping from her, drawing trails of ice down her back, that was certain to let anyone who took the time to cast even the most fleeting of glances towards her know that she was not in any way shape or form all right and that she would not be okay before she had got the chance to sleep for ages, but Zelda still tried her best to keep herself from swaying as Link’s eyebrows rose.

“O—” he interrupted himself, instead shifting slightly to the side, taking an unsure step forwards.

Seeing what he was thinking from the look he sent towards where her shoes had already sunk into the mud, Zelda followed along. Now was not the moment to show any weakness. That would have to wait for when she knew for certain that both Link and Ganondorf had made it away from Clock Town without any further injuries.

Moving slowly, not once loosening his hold on her, Link began speaking again. “Ganondorf’s all right, just so you know it. Him and Epona—we all managed to make it through the city without any of the groups following us—all thanks to you distracting them, of course.” he paused to send her a smile that Zelda did not have the strength to return, the awkward tension between them growing as he seemed to realise that. “We—or well, Epona, really—uh, we rode through the streets towards the same gate we entered it through. But… we had to leave the trolley behind. I know that, in hindsight, we should have thought to bring it along since you were able to take the focus away from us, but, at the time, I could not justify the minutes it would have taken for me to figure out a way to get it out of the city with us.”

The water. The food. The tent. The memory of everything that had been in the trolley, the books and maps she had taken from the library, flashed in Zelda’s mind as she tried to take in just what it meant. There would be no putting up the tent once they were certain that they were safe from the Yiga Clan, no food heated up over the camping stove. But as much as she tried to feel even the slightest bit of annoyance or fear when thinking about what it would mean for them exactly, all that went through her mind was the relief that they had made it out of the city in one piece.

“Doesn’t matter,” Zelda heard herself mumble, Link leaning towards her, no doubt to better be able to make out what she was saying, “we’ll figure it out.”

It seemed like Link was about to open his mouth, most likely to protest her blasé response, but he closed it again without a word.

They continued in silence like that, Link holding her up as Zelda felt her foot catch on a stone sticking up from the ground, the last bit of strength leaving her entirely as he led her up the hill, Zelda only just barely able to keep her feet from dragging after her, instead continuing to totter forwards as they made their way up to the top of the hill. From up there, Zelda could see that Link had told her the truth. Just a couple of hundred metres away, Ganondorf was sitting beneath an oak tree, Epona grazing next to him. She was still too far away to be able to make out any details, the blur the world had turned into not making it any easier, but at least it proved that they were really there and that Link had not tried to spare her feelings.

Crossing those last few metres between themselves and the rest of their little group proved to be one of the hardest things Zelda had ever had to do. Barely managing to make it all the way over there before feeling how her knees buckled below her, sending her crashing to the ground the moment she knew that Ganondorf was truly real, Zelda could only push herself up into a sitting position against the tree as she reached out towards him. Catching herself before she would have touched the injured shoulder, Zelda saw how Ganondorf lifted his head to look at her. In his eyes, she could see a kind of exhaustion that was no doubt visible in her own gaze, and as she looked down towards the angry, red line, the blood that had seeped into his sleeve making it look more muddled than before, the cut in the sweater still letting her know just where the blade had hit, part of her could not believe that he was even able to do that.

Bowing her head at him, Zelda could only find the words to form a simple sentence. “Hi. It’s… it’s good to see you—here.” saying that it was nice to see that he was all right felt almost like making a mockery of the bloodied sleeve, and so, Zelda made sure not to.

Still, Ganondorf must have been able to tell what she really meant, for his gaze followed hers down towards the cut sleeve, a humourless smile forming on his face. “Yeah,” he said, using his right hand to gesture towards the wound, “not looking as great as it could have.”

There was nothing for her to say in response to that, Zelda already knowing that any attempt at convincing both him and herself that she was not already thinking about the risk of infection as she looked down at the wound would have sounded dishonest at best and like an attempt at lying directly to his face at worst. So she stayed silent as Link walked towards Epona, reaching up towards her to untie what looked like a piece of rope he had used to tie something to her side, moving carefully and with the air of someone handling a dangerous object, the flash of metal clear in the sunlight that reached them down there as he gripped onto the object with one hand before pivoting to head over towards them.

He had brought the sword along. It took a moment for Zelda to make the connection, to look towards the blade in Link’s hand and realise that she was not imagining things. He had really brought the sword that had seemed to be the catalyst for the Yiga Clan’s decision to try to kill them along when he had fled. For once, the exhaustion that kept her from being able to move felt like a blessing in disguise, for had it not been for that keeping her sitting there, leaning against the tree, Zelda was certain that she would already have jumped to her feet to ask him just what had possessed him to think that it was a good idea to bring the sword that had got them into this mess in the first place with him.

It did not appear that she had to say anything at all though, for as Link sat down in front of them, his eyes finding hers, maintaining eye contact for a moment before looking down at the sword in his hand, it seemed that he knew everything she could have said to him about her opinion on the presence of the sword.

“Look…” Link’s gaze flickered back and forth between her, Ganondorf, and the sword, “I know that it was a bad idea to bring it along with me. I know that it endangered every last one of us—you don’t have to tell me any of that. If—if I am honest, I know that I can’t even give you a good reason for why I did it, but…” Link shook his head, “there was just something about it that made it feel right to take it, like there was this—this _voice_ in my head ordering me to bring it along with me as we fled the museum. And I know that it was dumb; I know that it was reckless, both to take it and to tie it to Epona, but I just… I could not bring myself to leave it behind, not with the Yiga Clan, not with how they…” he let the sentence trail off, and as Zelda watched, she saw how his eyes became unfocused as every last bit of his focus seemed to turn to be directed solely towards the sword and nothing else.

The Master Sword. That was what the Yiga Clan had called it. With how her mind felt like she had just simultaneously been awake for years and had all of her thoughts thrown into a whirlpool, the mess of half-finished ideas and thoughts being put inside her brain again, it took a couple of seconds longer than it perhaps should have for her to figure out where she had heard it all before. The ancient legends. They might have lost the books on mythology in relation to the history of Hyrule, but Zelda had heard the stories of the different heroes of Hyrule far too often for her not to be able to recognise the name from all the descriptions of the different young boys and men who had drawn a sword with the same name. If she had had the energy, perhaps she would have let out a laugh, but as it was, the only thing Zelda could do was to close her eyes and lean back against the tree as she tried to make peace with the fact that, out of all the people who could have survived the end of the world, the one group they happened to stumble across had to be some kind of almost cult-like group obsessed with the ancient legends, that, rather than finding other people who, like themselves, had found each other in the wake of what was undoubtedly the hardest period of their lives, they had spent time talking to people who had turned against their fellow survivors, even going so far as to delude themselves into thinking that they really had a mythological sword in their possession, using the delusion as a reason to attack them. It was really what they needed now when hope was the hardest to find, proof that other people had already lost their sanity in their search for a way to make sense of everything that had happened.

Link must have interpreted her silence as some kind of implicit acceptance of his decisions, for he did make another attempt at explaining his thought process, instead unzipping his jacket, the green colour appearing almost brown with all the mud that had dried in cakes to cover every last centimetre of fabric.

Deep down, Zelda already knew what he was trying to do, but that did not make it any easier for her to keep herself from protesting the idea as Link pulled at the hem of his shirt, holding it as far away from his body as he could before holding up the sword, the lack of distance between himself and the object he was trying to cut through clearly exacerbating his difficulties with angling the edge of the sword so that the risk of him accidentally injuring himself would be as low as possible. The shirt was dirty, and as much as Zelda could recognise the fact that, with how Link’s jacket had protected it from coming into direct contact with the very worst sources of dirt and bacteria, it was perhaps the cleanest article of clothing they had to work with right then and there, it did not change the fact that being the cleanest piece of fabric they could get was not synonymous with clean enough to use to bandage a wound or to allow them to act with any degree of confidence that it would not lead to an infection. But a single look in Ganondorf’s direction was enough to let her know that they had not choice, that the blood seeping into his sweater was a larger and more pressing issue than an infection that was likely to happen either way if they did not cover the wound, so Zelda kept her fears to herself as Link cut off a wide strip of fabric, working slowly to not fray the makeshift bandage more than absolutely necessary.

Folding the fabric once, Link crawled over to sit directly next to Ganondorf’s injured arm. “This is probably going to hurt, but I promise you that I am working as quickly as I can to get this finished.” from where she was sitting, Zelda could only see the back of his head, but even then, she could still hear the apology in his voice as he leant in with the bandage.

With how he had sat with his eyes closed for all the time it had taken Link to cut off the piece of fabric, Zelda was surprised when she heard Ganondorf mumble something, the individual words being indiscernible from one another, but the overall meaning clear: it was all right; Link could go ahead.

Despite having just got permission to move forward with the attempt at keeping the loss of blood at a minimum, Link still hesitated for another moment before he began working. By then, however, he also stayed true to his promise of getting it over with quickly, and although Zelda knew that the exhaustion was probably also part of it, there was still something about the way his movements blurred together as he began wrapping the fabric around Ganondorf’s arm that told her that he was pushing himself to work as quickly as he could while still making sure that the bandage was tight enough to minimise the blood loss, Link tying two knots on top of each other as he reached the end of the piece of fabric.

“There.” Link rose to his feet, looking down at them for another moment, looking almost like he was about to make a remark on the fact that Zelda could already see the green fabric of his shirt begin to turn a reddish brown as the blood began to seep into it, but rather than saying anything, he spun around, walking over towards Epona without another word.

Zelda could hardly blame him for that. Though she was sitting right there next to him, as she looked over at Ganondorf and took in the way he sat with his head tilted back, looking so tired that Zelda instinctively knew that the tree trunk behind them was the only thing keeping him in the sitting position and with an greyish undertone to his complexion that grew more and more pronounced as the red blotch of blood on the bandage became larger, Zelda could not think of anything to say that could make the situation seem even just a little bit less hopeless.

Instead, she let herself give in to the exhaustion, closing her eyes despite knowing that the little voice that told her it would just last for a moment was lying to her. She had been right to doubt it, for it barely took her a second to find herself falling back into a dreamless sleep.

+++

Zelda woke up to a kind of coldness she had never thought she would have to experience having settled into her bones and with a harsh stench in front of her. Shivering with cold, it took her a moment to realise that the smelly thing in her lap was Link’s jacket, the folds in the fabric letting her know that it had been covering her shoulders at some point in time, no doubt having been pushed down by her shaking in her sleep.

Blinking in an attempt at forcing her eyes to grow used to the darkness around her, the sound of fabric rustling next to her made Zelda turn her head towards the sound so quickly that pain shot up through her neck, a strangled cry of pain escaping her before she was able to regain control over her body.

“Zelda!” the word was whispered, but as Link placed his hand on her shoulder, Zelda heard it as clearly as if he had yelled at her. “Everything’s fine. Just go back to sleep again.”

He was lying. Zelda did not have to be able to see as well as she could during the day to know that, not with how his words were slightly slurred, the sound of it combining with the bags under his eyes that was an unmistakable sign of sleep deprivation as he sat there in front of her to let Zelda know that he had not been sleeping at all in the time that had passed since she had fallen asleep. The way she slowly began to be able to make out the outline of Ganondorf next to her, the slightly darker colour that bloomed near the centre of the bandage around the wound visible even in the darkness, only served to further prove the thought as she pushed herself away from the tree, ignoring the way her head felt like it was going to split in two as she looked over at Link. Everything was not fine, far from it. Not only had they just lost everything, tent, food, water, and any information that she had not thought to take a picture of, there was now also a group of people out there willing to go to great lengths to see them dead, all because of the sword Link had taken, leaving them here, Ganondorf breath sounding shallow in a way that left Zelda unable to tell whether or not it was more than a product of her own worries as she recalled the grey tone that had slowly grown more and more evident in his face the longer they had sat there. Glancing towards the slight shine of metal reflecting moonlight, Zelda tried to search for the right words, finding herself coming up short and instead settling for simply spitting out the question.

“Link?” she whispered the word, but Link still leant in closer, clearly directing every bit of attention that was not preoccupied with the bandage around Ganondorf’s wound towards her. “Are we going to be all right?”

The way he looked away from her, the two of them united in a moment of taking in the appearance of the red blotch against the green colour of the makeshift bandage, betrayed his real thoughts as Link bowed his head. “Yeah,” he whispered back, “yes, everything is going to be fine. Just go back to sleep, Zelda.”

She felt like a she was a child again, telling Urbosa that she was scared of the dark when she would come to visit, relieved as Urbosa had sat down to tell her that there was nothing out there, that, other than making it more difficult for her to see, the night was really just like the day, only a bit darker. Later, she had learnt to fear the things that might be out there in the dark, sneaking books on Re-Deads and other mythological creatures into the house, but at first, Zelda had allowed herself to calm down after being assured that it would be fine. It was the same thing now. The Yiga Clan was out there, a real and tangible threat in a way the Re-Deads had never been, but she still found herself pulling the jacket back up towards her shoulders to shield herself from the cold once more, somewhat comforted by the thought that there was someone there who would watch out for threats the same way Urbosa had done back then.

It was not the same. Zelda knew that, but she felt like there was a bit of the same sentiment in the way Link set down next to her as she tried to make the jacket cover as much of her body as she could.

The freezing cold made her movements slow and clumsy, Zelda dropping the jacket once, then twice. By the third time, Link reached out to help her, tucking the sleeves in between her and the tree trunk she was still leaning against with a little smile.

“Sleep well.”

She should have asked him when he was going to sleep, should have offered to take the watch to let him sleep, but she could not bring herself to do it, not as her eyelids grew heavier and heavier as she fell asleep again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, the group's past and the legends from ancient times are beginning to really affect their quest.


	11. Chapter 11

When she woke up, it was to a feeling of electricity crackling in the air.

Already before she had even opened her eyes, every last sense was already hyperaware of what was happening, her mind one loud yell that there were threats and commands for her to get up, get ready, protect, and run.

Pushing against the tree behind her, it took everything tough in Zelda not to let out a pained gasp as she put weight back onto her legs again, forced herself to stand up, a motion that made it seem almost like gravity had increased during the night with how heavy her body felt. Then she opened her eyes, and in a heartbeat, every last bit of exhaustion was gone, instead replaced with pure adrenaline and the feeling that she should have done something during those first few moments of being aware of the threat.

They were back. The unknown group that had interrupted their fight with the Yiga Clan, a member of which had chased her out of the city itself, making her jump into the lake to escape from them, were back. Keeping herself from attacking for a second to try to size up the enemy, Zelda noticed that, where they had had enough force in numbers to put up a fight against the Yiga Clan, there were only three blue and white clad figures in front of her, but with how quickly they had appeared in the museum, there was no doubt in Zelda’s mind that there might very well be more members of the second group hidden somewhere in the area around them, ready to overpower them.

For they were going to lose, should it come to an all-out fight. It was not a question of whether or not it would happen, but rather when. Even with the hostile group having seemingly decided to try to lull them into a false sense of security by only having three of its members out in the open, they still outnumbered them when it came to people who would have even the slightest chance of being able to put up a fight for more than a second when faced with their frightening speed and knives that moved through the air so quickly that it felt like they bled in an out of the reality around them, emitting a blue light. With Ganondorf still on the ground, not having done anything to indicate that he was even awake much less aware enough of his surroundings to have noticed the presence of the same group that had been the reason for their little group being separated less than a day before, it would be up to Zelda and Link to defend them all. Zelda had no delusions about how that would turn out, a seventeen-year-old girl who could still barely stand without swaying from side to side and a boy who had been up all night, one of them completely unarmed and the other one armed with a sword he not only could not use but was also the reason for why they were in this mess in the first place. They were going to die if it came to a battle of strength, skill, and stamina, that much was clear.

A second passed, slow and agonising, as Zelda waited for one of the strangers to give the order for the others to attack.

And then another, and another.

Feeling a drop of sweat roll down her back, Zelda looked directly at the person standing closest to her, trying her best to decide what they were hoping to achieve by making them wait. Was it to make sure that by the time they would attack, their opponents would already have been worn down by worrying about what was to come? If so, it was certainly working, for Zelda could almost hear how Link alternatively clenched and unclenched his jaw as they stood there, Zelda keeping her fists closed as she brought her hands up in front of her face, lowering her centre of gravity as if that would be enough to counteract the fact that she was still swaying from side to side, Link holding up the sword, the angle he held it in looking awkward even to Zelda. No matter what, fact was that as Zelda counted how the sound of her heartbeat marked the passing of time, the force she would have been able to put into an attack gradually dwindled as that first rush of adrenaline left her with little more than exhaustion to take its place.

Hoping that it would be enough to keep her own lack of faith from showing, Zelda looked towards the people who had sneaked up towards them, trying her best to determine any tactic that would be less likely to end with their deaths than any of the other hopeless plans that were already forming in her head. Three people, that much was simple enough, a conclusion she could probably have reached even if she had not got the opportunity to sleep a little beforehand. But from there, even though Zelda could at least see the upper half of their attackers’ faces, the cloth pulled up to cover everything from their nose and down not being enough to hide their eyes or where they were looking towards from her, she was not sure what else she would be able to utilise to buy the rest of the team more time to flee, if there even was a chance that they would be able to do that again, something Zelda doubted. Even the day before, they had barely made it, Ganondorf first being wounded, and then her being thrown around by the waves, and now, she would have to make an attempt again, to try to figure out a way to draw the strangers’ attention away from Ganondorf and Link again, all to hope that the cycle would not simply repeat the next day.

To say that she could feel the hope fade away would have been an understatement, but Zelda still knew better than to let her enemies see her fear, so even though it felt like it would grant her a bigger chance of survival to surrender immediately, she kept on standing as the one who appeared to be the leader stepped forwards, the two other attackers flanking them as they did so.

“Listen,” they said, their voice low and even, “we are not here to fight. We just want to—”

Link lunged at them. Moving with such speed and momentum behind every last movement that Zelda could only stand there, watching with wide eyes and an open mouth as the awkward angle he had held his sword at just a moment ago suddenly changed to become balanced, Link reaching the leader of the group in a moment, already halfway through the stroke by the time they had even begun to react. For they did react, weapons appearing from out of thin air, the blue blade casting an eerie light on their faces as they cut through the night, barely meeting Link’s blade in time to deflect the blow. Through the chaos of the fight and the sound of metal against what she was no longer so sure was really metal, Zelda could hear the attackers barking orders at each other, the leader yelling something to Link, words Zelda could not even make out and that she doubted Link would have any better luck with reaching her as he swivelled around, gaining momentum to put into the attack once again.

He had misjudged. Zelda saw it the moment it happened, how the attacker who had been the one to flank the leader’s right side had managed to duck under his arm, shoving him to the side, the sudden push being just enough to make Link lose his balance.

He stumbled. It wasn’t much, just a slight step to the side, his eyes widening, letting Zelda know that he had not meant to do that, but it was enough, the third person rushing forwards to grab his arm, twisting it around.

Link screamed as the sword fell to the ground, his legs buckling beneath him to send him crashing to the ground, the only thing keeping him from fully falling over in the mud being the fact that the enemy who had grabbed him was still holding onto him, the way they looked up towards the leader letting Zelda know that she had been right to pinpoint them as the one in charge.

It had all happened in a matter of seconds, and still, Zelda felt almost like she had aged a century as her mind caught up with what was happening, her legs carrying her forward without her thinking about it. Before she knew it, she had crossed the few metres that separated her from Link and the three hostile strangers, stepped in front of Link to block the leader from being able to advance towards him, and thrown up her hand and yell out a single word.

“Stop!”

Miraculously, they did stop. It was more than she could have hoped for, for the sheer surprise at seeing her do something as stupid as believing that she would be anything more than a brief obstacle for them on their way towards the actual threat to make them pause, but as she stood there, Zelda could almost believe that she saw honest worry in the leader’s eyes. Behind her, she could hear Link whisper something to her, no doubt telling her to take Ganondorf and run away while he would try to distract them with some desperate last attempt at freeing himself from the hold of the other attacker, but she had already allowed him to tell her to go back to sleep when she knew that he would not extend the same compassion to himself, so Zelda remained, looking directly into the eyes of the leader as she heard her voice break twice before she was able to force out the words. “Don’t—please, don’t! I—we weren’t trying to create trouble! All we want is to be left alone, not for you to have any reason to hate us! Please, just let us leave, and then we will leave this area immediately.”

Something other than worry bloomed in the leader’s eyes, something almost akin to horror, but before they would have got a chance to say anything, a grunt followed by a the sound of mud being pushed aside made them both spin around to see how Link had somehow been able to push his captor aside, already standing up again as he rubbed the shoulder that had been twisted mere moments before. Still, for as much as Zelda feared for his wellbeing and health, that was not what truly scared her as she looked at him. That was the look in his eyes.

It looked like fire was burning right behind his pupils, waiting to be let loose so that it would be able to devour everything around them. As he leapt forwards, armed with nothing but his bare hands, Zelda could only stand there, frozen in place as Link reached her and pushed her aside to instead reach out and grab the leader.

Raising them up into the air, there was little of the tiredness and fear that Zelda had seen mere moments before to be found in his behaviour, Link holding their full weight above him, his arms not shaking, and nothing about his expression betraying any kind of fear or exhaustion. Instead, there was only anger, rage, and something Zelda decided she would rather never see again, a need for revenge.

“I—” Link’s voice trembled the way his arms should have done, but there was no doubt about the fact that it had nothing to do with fear or pain, but rather everything to do with the fire in his eyes, “I am telling you and the rest of your little clan right now not to follow us! We haven’t done anything to harm or offend you, but if it doesn’t change, then—”

“We…” the leader, clutched onto Link’s arms, having seemingly already given up on any possibility of being able to loosen his grip on their arms even a bit already, now merely seeming to try their best to minimise the risk of making everything worse as they gestured wildly in the direction of Ganondorf, “your friend—he is hurt! We can help you! That wound, it is in urgent need of qualified medical attention if you don’t want to see it become infected! We can help you with that!”

“And why should we trust you? We have seen you attack us twice now!” Link growled the words, but Zelda still noted how his expression softened just enough for it to be noticeable for her, the way he lowered the leader closer towards the ground, and how he could not hide casting a glance towards Ganondorf as he spoke.

Something flew through the air, all three of them, both Zelda, Link, and the leader of the hostile group, barely able to step aside before a knife came cutting through the very space they had just inhabited, a blue glow following after it. It continued through the air, sailing directly past Zelda, before being stopped by a tree, the force with which it had been thrown burying it in the wood, the hilt being all that stuck out.

There was nothing she could say or do as she stood there, the realisation that, had she not noticed the sound of something cutting through air, she would not have had time to step aside washing in over her, nothing any of them could say, and perhaps that was for the better, as it allowed the leader to regain the ability to speak before Link got the chance to turn towards them again after having been attacked by their group for the third time.

“Olkin! Stand down! They are not your enemies! You too, Steen, let go of him.” the leader barked the order, and immediately, Zelda saw how the person who had held Link, the one who had grabbed onto his arm and disarmed him in moments, let go of him to instead stand up straight, not moving and not saying anything, but simply looking towards the leader.

There was nothing about the look of his face that allowed Zelda to say anything about his reasons for instantly obeying, no brief glance towards Link that would have indicated a fear that the next attempt on their lives would be the one to make him snap, nothing at all. Instead, he looked towards them almost like he only truly saw them in that moment, Zelda noticing the way his eyes lit up as he turned to whisper something to the third member of the group.

They did not consider themselves their enemies. The piece of information should perhaps have been a comfort, but as Zelda took in the sight of the knife that still stuck out of the tree, the sword that was still lying in the mud where Link had dropped it, and the fact that she was still tired and sore after having had to throw herself into the river and hope for the best, all to get away from the group in front of her, the only thing she could think about was that if that was how they treated those they did not consider enemies, then she would truly not wish it upon anyone to become their enemy.

Perhaps Link had reached the same conclusion, for slowly, ever so slowly and constantly with that wild look in his eyes that made him look like he was simply waiting for a sign that he had been wrong to extend what little trust they had left to a group that had attacked them multiple times already, he lowered the leader down until he was standing on the ground again.

“Thank you.” as the leader looked between her and Link, Zelda was almost not sure whom he was talking to, nor did it matter. A thankyou and a copy of what would perhaps have been considered good manners in the past was not enough to take away the fact that they were still standing there, seconds away from attacking each other again. Zelda did not have to ask to know that, if it came to that, Link would be able to reach the sword in a heartbeat, back on his feet and ready to fight just as quickly as he had been moments before. It appeared like the leader realised the same, for, clearing their throat, they nodded towards Ganondorf. “I understand that you don’t trust us right now, but I promise you, if you would only listen to me, then I swear that you will see that we are merely trying to help.”

“We have no reason to trust you,” Link said, the sound of his voice becoming slightly shriller as he gritted his teeth, still staring towards the leader like he would somehow be able to bring the entire group to fall through sheer power of will.

Perhaps he really would be able to do that. After all, just a day ago, Zelda would never have thought that anything like the attack that had just occurred would ever have been a possibility, much less have expected the way Link had suddenly rushed forward, holding the sword like he had been born to do nothing else.

A moment of total silence passed between them before the leader nodded towards Link, their gaze falling towards where his hand was still clenched at his side. “I see.” then, turning towards their group members, they yelled out the last order Zelda had expected to hear. “Olkin, please leave us. You too, Steen. This is a moment where it will be better if we work alone.”

Following the leader’s line of sight, Zelda saw how both of their men opened their mouths, no doubt to protest, only to close them again, turn around, and begin to walk away. Zelda followed their path away from them with her eyes, saw how they moved towards the river next to them and waited for the moment where she would hear the sound of water meeting something solid that had moved into its path. It never came. The two, Olkin and Steen, seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

Turning back towards Link, Zelda could see the same panic as the one that was already clouding her senses begin to show on his face as the fire in his eyes slowly receded, first becoming little more than a spark and then dying completely, letting his expression return to one she was finally able to recognise as Link’s. Though Zelda knew that they now outnumbered the only visible enemy near them, the fact that the two others had been able to leave so suddenly and without a trace, making it seem like they had simply snapped their fingers and disappeared in some grand show of magic, raised the question of just how many people might be waiting in the darkness around them, prepared to do the exact same thing to appear next to them, armed with the same kind of razor-sharp weapons as the one currently lodged in the tree.

“There aren’t anyone out there.” the leader pronounced every syllable slowly and clearly, Zelda feeling a shiver run down her back as they so accurately addressed her exact thoughts. “I meant it when I told them to leave. I just want to talk with you—for me to have any plans of trying to attack you would be absurd.”

“And if we try to attack you?” from the way he moved, shifting his weight forwards, it was clear that Link was trying to appear threatening, but it was no use. There was none of the fiery intensity in his eyes anymore as he looked at the leader, only the same kind of fear that Zelda could already feel constricting her ability to breathe, Link swaying back and forth slightly.

Maybe the leader of the group noticed it, saw the signs that, for as quick as Link had been to attack, for as quickly as he had been able to almost bring an end to the goal that had brought them there, it had all been the result of adrenaline. No matter what, they seemed oddly calm as they tilted their head to the side, looking at Link like he was something they found interesting, something to study. “If that were to happen, I am able to leave this area before you would get the chance to do something you would regret later. However, I can assure you that if you will just listen to me for a moment, then you will see that you really have no reason to wish to attack me at all.”

They said it with so much certainty in their voice, that, despite the fear making it difficult to breathe, Zelda found herself stepping forwards. “You attacked us back at the museum,” she said, hearing her voice shake, “you appeared from out of nowhere, and when we tried to flee, one of your men kept on chasing me, only stopping after I had to jump into the river to get a chance of escaping.”

“We…” the leader bowed their head, “I apologise for giving you that impression, but we truly were not there to harm you, not at all.”

“Then why were you there?” Link stepped forwards, standing directly at Zelda’s side as they both stared into the eyes of the stranger.

“Because we were trying to protect the three of you.” the leader said the words, and, despite searching for even the slightest hint of a lie in their eyes, Zelda only saw candour in their expression as they continued. “We have been trying to find you for days now, but I fear that the Yiga Clan was able to track you down far faster than we were. How they were able to do that, however, is beyond me; nothing in the past has ever indicated that they were able to do it so quickly, not before you had—before you had met them first, at least.”

The connection was simple to make, something she had already realised before, and yet, Zelda heard herself gasp as it was confirmed once again. “The sword!” fully aware that Link was looking at her like he was not quite sure whether to worry most for her sanity or for the risk of the stranger attacking them, Zelda looked directly into the eyes of the leader of the other group. “It was the sword, wasn’t it, the one they referred to as the Master Sword? Link drew a sword and then the Yiga Clan attacked. It was the sword that was what made them identify us as—” she tried to gesture, lacking the words to properly articulate just what they might have thought, “as their enemies, right?”

It was. Though the leader did not respond at first, the way their gaze flickered as they looked from Zelda to Link and then finally over at the sword revealed that it was true. Zelda did not know what to do with that piece of information. It should have been a relief to at least know the reason for why they had had to run for their lives, but as she copied the stranger’s movements, looking towards the sword as well, all that was left in her mind were the confusion and the doubts whirling around in a puddle of unanswered question.

“Yes,” the leader finally said, confirming what she already knew to be true with a nod, “yes, it was indeed the Master Sword that… that marked you as the chosen ones to the Yiga Clan.”

Letting out a frustrated noise, Link moved closer towards them. “What do you mean? Chosen ones? We were just there because we were passing through to get to Lurelin Village. We had no idea that there would be a cult there, so just why are you talking like they would know that we were going to arrive in Clock Town? Why were they acting like they had seen us before? And, if we are to believe that you and the rest of your group really arrived to save us, then what were your reasons for doing any of that? Why would you risk your life and safety for three strangers, only to then chase one of them into the river and almost let her drown?” his voice broke on the last word, but he brushed Zelda aside as she stepped forwards to try to place a hand on his arm, the line of his shoulders as tense as ever when he fell silent to instead stare at the person in front of them.

“Listen,” the leader sighed, “I can’t tell you everything, not yet at least, nor do I have all the answers you seek. But I swear to you that we were there to protect you. The Yiga Clan—it is not a cult, not in the way you expect a cult to be, at least. They are a group of people who have… whose hate for those they think of as being chosen has led them to push aside all thoughts for their own safety as well as the lives of everyone else in their attempt at triggering the apocalypse.” the word sent a shiver down Zelda’s back, something she knew that the stranger was sure to have noticed, their eyes fastening on her face as they continued. “We… the Yiga Clan believe that the sword you,” they nodded at Link, “drew is the one that points them in the direction of this group of chosen ones. That was why they attacked you back then. My group and I had spent weeks tracking them down, but it was not until we reached the museum that we realised that they had found you already—”

“Found us already?” Zelda echoed. “So you are saying that you too believed that it was inevitable that we would run into them?”

The cloth that covered the lower half of the leader’s face moved a little, a slight crease forming. Though Zelda could not be sure, there was something about it that, when combined with the appearance of soft wrinkles around their eyes, told her that they were smiling at her as they nodded. “I should have known that you would notice that. Yes, we also believed that you would one day meet the Yiga Clan from the moment we heard about the theft of the Master Sword. We had simply deluded ourselves into believing that we might be able to reach you first so that we would be able to help you get it back from them. I apologise for us being too late and for the fact that your friend paid the price for it—he is all right!” raising their voice, the leader spoke over Link’s gasp, drowning out the beginning of a sentence Zelda could feel echoing in her own mind. “The wound needs medical attention, but it will be all right as long as we get him to Kakariko Village in time.”

She was playing directly into his plans by asking. Zelda knew that, but even that was not enough to keep her from tilting her head to the side, inspecting the leader’s face for any sign of a direct lie as she asked the only question that could ever be a response to such a statement. “Kakariko Village? The village from the myths? Are you really trying to tell us that it is real?”

The leader met her gaze without flinching. “I was as confused as you are now when I first heard about it, but, yes, it is real. Let me take you there, and then I promise you that your friend will receive the care he needs just as you will have everything explained to you.”

It was such an obvious trap, going with a stranger to a village everyone knew belonged in children’s bedtime stories, that Zelda could not bring herself to decline the offer of help outright. Instead, she looked over at Link, and in the glance he sent her way, Zelda could see the same considerations that went through her mind in the moments that followed.

They outnumbered the stranger two to one. It was not much, and with the bright blue light of their weapons suggesting that it might be made of some kind of otherworldly material along with the sudden disappearance of the two helpers leaving her unable to rule out the possibility of there being other people waiting for the moment where they would attack, Zelda was unable to say whether they would truly have any kind of advantage in a possible fight. But more than anything, the thing that made her pause before she could have told the stranger to go away and leave them alone unless they wanted for them to have a reason to try to get revenge for everything that had happened was the groan that escaped Ganondorf, the blotch of blood on his bandage lurid even in the darkness of the night as Zelda looked over at him. It could very well turn out to be a trap, but after everything that had happened, could she really ignore even the slightest chance that the leader of the group was telling the truth when they said that they had a way to help him?

The answer was no, so even though Zelda could practically feel the tension in the air between them, she turned back towards the stranger. “I am telling you right now that if you are lying, if you do anything to make it worse for him, then we will make you regret it.” seeing how Link moved closer towards her, the two of standing shoulder to shoulder, blocking the leader’s view of Ganondorf, Zelda could almost feel how her voice grew firmer and less weak as she fixed the leader with a glare. “I can still remember being chased into the river by your group. If you give us any indication that I had a reason to do that, we won’t hesitate to attack.”

It was not the strongest threat she could have thought of, especially not when she still had yet to get a chance to talk with Link in private to ask him what had happened when he had picked up the sword, but at least the leader nodded, even if they did not seem to find the promise as intimidating as Zelda had hoped. “I must admit that I had expected for you to tell me that. I am Dorian, by the way, one of the men chosen to try to halt the Yiga Clan’s plan, and I apologise for the fact that we weren’t able to find you sooner—along with making you fear us enough to throw yourself into the river.” His lips quirked a little, just enough for the crease to once again form in the fabric covering the lower half of his face. “That really was not our intention.”

He held out his hand.

The sound of her heartbeat felt like a drum beating right next to her ear as Zelda waited for what was to come. Only a second later did she realise that the leader—Dorian—was waiting for her to return the gesture, to step forwards and shake his hand. Next to her, she could almost feel how Link was on the verge of opening his mouth to let Dorian know just how naïve he must consider them to honestly think that they could ever do that, only to fall silent as Zelda stepped forwards, grabbing Doran’s hand.

“I expect to receive a full explanation for what has happened when we reach whoever you believe has the full knowledge of what is going on,” Zelda said, tightening her hold on Doran’s hand as she looked directly into his eyes.

To his credit, Dorian did not look worried as he spoke. “I will make sure to arrange for you to receive an explanation the moment we have got the chance to make sure that your friend will be all right.” there was nothing about the way he reached up to put his free hand on top of hers, still maintaining eye contact, that would suggest a lie, and yet, Zelda could not ignore the feeling in her stomach of her having somehow missed something, something important as Dorian turned from her, whistling loudly.

The night appeared to part in front of them, Zelda only realising that what she had at first thought to be a ghost, a faint blue light surrounding it as it approached them, was really closer to being a motorcycle. It drove towards them, seemingly without needing any input from anyone, or at least it stopped right next to Dorian, Zelda seeing how the blue light she had thought to be a sign of something supernatural was really just the faint glow of a core. It must have been installed close to the wheels, the light illuminating the motorcycle from below, but as much as she tried to place it somewhere in her mind next to all other pieces of Sheikah technology, Zelda could not recall having ever seen something like it, much less now. Eyeing the size of the motorcycle with what she already knew was a wary expression on her face, she tried to gauge just how often it must have been necessary to take the energy from a core of a car to be able to power the motorcycle, just how many times Dorian must have risked electrocution to be able to drive the thing, if he was even driving it at all. Glancing back and forth between the motorcycle and Dorian, Zelda searched for even the slightest him of being confused by the way the bike had seemingly moved of its own accord.

If that was the case, Dorian his it well, looking at Zelda like he could not understand why she had paused at all. Gesturing towards Ganondorf, he cocked his head. “We should probably get going. Though I am sure that we would be able to handle that as well, I think it would be far more pleasant for your friend if we are able to begin treating his wound before it gets the chance to become infected.”

He had been able to pinpoint their weakness with a frightening accuracy. That was what Zelda realised as both she and Link exchanged another look before obeying the implicit order, turning around to head over to where Ganondorf was still asleep. As she wrapped an arm around him, pulling his left arm over her shoulder, Link doing the same on the other side, Zelda could only wonder how long he had been aware of it, if the fight had been nothing more than a farce to him and his group, a way to let them believe that they would ever have been able to put up a fight without being aware that he had known from the very start that all it would have taken to bring an end to it was to remind them of the threat to Ganondorf’s wellbeing or bring up the fact that Zelda could feel the sticky warmth of the blood that had seeped through the bandage as she accidentally let her hand brush against it, feeling how it came away with blood on it. She did not know the answer to the question, nor was she sure she wanted to as she and Link slowly began to lead Ganondorf towards the motorcycle, carrying him more than anything, Ganondorf’s head tilting forwards, his chin hitting his chest as they tried to keep him as steady as possible while making their way through the mud.

Dorian watched them try to figure out how to get Ganondorf onto the motorbike without uttering a word, but Zelda knew that he was watching them from the moment the sound of fingers snapping broke through her and Link’s whispered discussion about how to best make sure that he would not fall off the seat during the drive to Kakariko Village, the cycle itself moving and twisting, the metal breaking apart to form a sidecar attached to the rest of the motorcycle.

For a moment, all Zelda could do was to stare at it, to look at how the appearance of the sidecar had just gone against everything she had ever thought to be possible, but the sound of Ganondorf’s shallow breathing brought her back to the situation at hand within seconds. Leaning forwards to look over at Link, she could see the same silent doubts written across his face as he looked from the sidecar and over at her. He was waiting for her to make a decision. The idea felt laughable as she stood there, unable to figure out what to do as everything she had been taught about physics and technology fell apart in front of her, but, nevertheless, Zelda knew that it was true as Link turned back to look at the sidecar once again, Ganondorf hanging limply between them.

The decision should have been difficult to make, and somewhere, Zelda supposed that it really was, but, pushing all thoughts about what the way the motorcycle had transformed itself in a matter of seconds meant for them aside, she did not allow herself to dwell on that, instead nodding towards it. “If we sit on either side of him in there, there should be just enough space for all three of us. Then we can hold onto him and make sure that he won’t move while we drive.” her voice was firm, calm even, but as Link moved to help her lift up Ganondorf enough to let them swing his legs over the side of the sidecar, the fact that he was what felt like half a metre taller than them as they stood there not making the task any easier, Zelda felt neither of those things. Her arms were shaking, she had no idea about how to explain what had just happened, one of her friends was hurt, and now it seemed that their only chance of getting him any help was to trust someone who, despite claiming that they had been trying to save them, had been part of a group that had chased them out of a city less than a day ago. She did not feel brave or like a leader. Rather, as Zelda climbed into the sidecar after Ganondorf, soon finding herself squeezed in between Ganondorf and the metal of the motorcycle she could no longer trust to be as solid as it should have been, Link holding onto the Master Sword as he pulled himself over the side, his knuckles turning white, she felt lost.

She was almost grateful for the fact that she would at least not have to drive the motorcycle. For as much as they still could not trust Dorian, the fact that he would be the one responsible for getting them to Kakariko Village, a village that should not exist, at least meant that Zelda did not have to figure out where to go, leaving her to look up at Dorian as he climbed onto the motorbike, turning in the seat to look down at them for a moment.

There was something in his eyes that Zelda did not know how to read, a look that felt almost familiar to her. It was gone in a matter of seconds, but as Dorian reached up to pull down the cloth covering his face, revealing a little smile, Zelda could almost convince herself that she could still see a reflection of it in his expression as he looked down at them, opening his mouth a couple of times before nodding towards where Epona was still grazing, the tense minutes of battle having seemingly failed to be enough for her to notice it. “I will send someone to bring your horse to the village. For now, try to relax. I promise you that you will find that we are really just trying to help you.”

She should have opened her mouth to refute the idea of ever being able to relax while sitting in the sidecar of a motorcycle that could seemingly change its shape, placing her life directly in the hands of a stranger. If nothing else, the fact that she had been able to forget about Epona should have made her pause. But even as Zelda tried to open her mouth to say something, she could not fend off the exhaustion any longer, the blue glow illuminating the air around her as they began to move looking like the glow of her Sheikah Slate from all the times she had continued to read into the night. Now, however, it was what she saw as she blinked, the periods of darkness growing longer and longer until she could not bring herself to open her eyes again.

Zelda was not sure exactly when she fell asleep. All she knew was that they were moving through the landscape, Dorian staying on the roads, the motorcycle feeling almost like it tried to stay as still as possibly as she rested her head against the side of it for a moment, only to give in to the exhaustion and fall asleep again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, finally, there is a chance that they might not be as alone as they had first assumed, even if most of the world has died...
> 
> Thank you for reading this!


	12. Chapter 12

The gentle lull of the sidecar kept her in the realm of almost being awake enough to notice her surroundings, grass flying past her, mountains rising up above her, only to disappear once again to make way for the roar of a river, and being fully asleep for the entire journey to Kakariko Village. Unable to form a proper idea of where they were, Zelda could only guess, could only try to look up at the trees that passed by above her head in the moments between total darkness and think that they did not look like the trees that grew in the Faron Province. But other than that, she was not sure exactly where they were going, how long they had been on the road, the sun rising up above her twice, but with the periods of sleep in between leaving her unable to know for certain what it meant for the time, or when they would reach the village that belonged in legends and books on mythology rather than on a map. A couple of times, Zelda tried to turn her head to steal a glance at Ganondorf, trying to gauge if he would be all right, but even if she had been able to clear her mind of the presence of sleep, she would still not have been able to know whether or not the fact that he had yet to wake up was a sign that his body was beginning to shut down or if it was an attempt at directing every last bit of strength to the process of recovering from the wound and subsequent escape from Clock Town. Link was visible as little more than a shadow out of the corner of her eyes, Zelda lacking the energy to bring herself to lean forwards to look past Ganondorf. Instead, she ended up spending most of those short minutes that interrupted the darkness looking towards Dorian.

He was leaning in over the handle of the motorcycle slightly, Zelda seeing how he anticipated every turn of the road, gently leading the bike along it without making any sudden turns or stops. Though she could not see his face, there was nothing about his reactions that would suggest that he was tired. But he had to be. With the passage of time being a blur to her, all Zelda had to guide her was the sight of the sun above her head, but even that was enough to let her know that they had been on their way to Kakariko Village for more than a day if not several. Granted, she could not completely deny the possibility of Dorian sleeping when the rest of them did, but it seemed unlikely with how she had yet to wake up to find him asleep. Rubbing her eyes in an attempt at getting herself to feel even slightly more awake, Zelda was halfway about to ask him if it wasn’t dangerous to continue on like that, when they rounded a corner, the mountainsides that had stood tall next to the road suddenly opening up to reveal the clearing that lay between them, surrounded by cliffs and hills, and all words fell away as Zelda looked at the sight in front of her.

It looked nothing like any city or town she had ever seen before, that much was clear. There were no skyscrapers, nothing that hindered her view of the village from the top of the hill where the road continued down towards what looked like some sort of main road. Instead, Zelda saw houses scattered throughout the valley, some of them located closer to the mountains, giving them a view over the valley, and other closer to the river that cut through the landscape. But more than anything, the thing that set the village apart from everything she had seen since she had first left her home behind, since the world had first fallen apart, was the fact that there were people. As Zelda sat motionless in the car, she saw two children run past a staircase leading up to a house that had been built on an elevated platform of rocks, one of them turning to look at them, only to gesture towards the other as the two of them began to sprint towards them, yelling something that Zelda wished she had not heard.

“Dad!” the younger one of the two reached them first, barely giving Dorian a chance to swing his legs over the side of the motorcycle and stand up before she had launched herself at him, Dorian merely laughing and picking her up like he had not just been awake for days as she laughed. “You’re back!”

“Yes, I’m back.” Dorian laughed, the sound making him seem much younger than before. “And I have brought some very dear guests along with me—they have had a very long journey behind them, so please give them a moment to rest before you bombard them with questions.” the last part was said in a slightly more serious tone of voice, but Dorian was still smiling as he turned towards Zelda. “Impa should be here in a moment. She will make sure to tell you everything you need to know about… about this village and what place the three of you hold within it.”

Without giving her a chance to protest, to beg him to stay until she had at least got a chance to wrap her head around the fact that there were people, far more people than what should have been possible, Dorian, Olkin, Steen, the two children, and now this Impa whoever that was seeming like they only made up a fraction of the population of the village, to ask who Impa was exactly, or why he talked about them like they belonged in the village they had thought of as a myth until that very moment, Dorian allowed the two children to pull him away from both the motorcycle and its three passengers to instead lead him down the road, chattering animatedly, Zelda catching little more than snippets of words as she looked after them.

There were people there. It should not have come as as big of a surprise as it was, not when she had seen the signs of it since the first time she had entered the museum to see that the Yiga Clan was more than just the creation of two souls who had been fortunate enough to find someone in the wake of the apocalypse, and yet, Zelda sat there, unable to tear her gaze away from the proof that there were really other people out there that the smoke rising up from little fireplaces scattered throughout the hills was. It was the kind of hope she had been able to cling to for so long, and yet, as she took in everything that had happened over the last few days, the cold sense of dread kept on building in her stomach as she remembered what Dorian had said.

The Yiga Clan was attempting to cause the apocalypse, believing that the Master Sword would serve as some kind of way to identify their enemies. Zelda wished that she could brush off all of that as the talk of a man who had known that he was outnumbered, and maybe she would have been able to think of a convincing enough lie to do just that had it not been for the fact that she could still see the afterimage of how Link had changed in front of her, losing the awkwardness and the fear that had first characterised his attempts at wielding the sword in a matter of seconds to instead charge with the sword held like he had spent in his entire life training to prepare himself for doing just that. That was something she could not ignore, the fact that, somehow, the sword seemed to have changed his behaviour. And if the sword seemed to hold some kind of magic, then, surely, it would mean that she could not eliminate the chance that Dorian might have told the truth about the Yiga Clan.

The apocalypse. Zelda whispered the word to herself, feeling a shiver run down her back as she did so. What would it look like? Not so long ago, she would have had an answer ready in a heartbeat, would have thought of fire pushing through any barrier or an army that could not be stopped. Now, however, she was not so sure anymore. What could possibly be categorised as an apocalypse if what had already happened, almost everyone around her dying, could not?

Zelda did not get a chance to find an answer, nor did she think she would have been able to even if she had been given all the time in the world, for the next thing she knew, an old woman had stepped out of the house built up on the raised platform.

Even from all the way up on the hill, Zelda could see her age in the way she moved, reaching out to hold onto the banisters of the staircase connecting the house with the rest of the village as she slowly made her way down towards the road running past the house. But for as much as her movements spoke of age, there was something about the woman that made Zelda have to look at her twice before she was able to say for sure that she was really as old as she had first thought her to be. It wasn’t something tangible, something Zelda would have been able to point towards while declaring that that was what had made her pause, but as she watched the woman make her way towards them, the metallic ornaments that hung from the hat that kept Zelda from being able to properly look at her face drawing her gaze upwards, towards the eye and the drop of tear that had been painted onto the front of it, there was an undeniable aura of something hanging around her that made Zelda sit there, silent and frozen as she watched her approach.

The woman stopped next to the motorcycle, looking down at them with an unreadable expression in her eyes for a moment before nodding, the gesture seemingly meant more for herself than for them. “Zelda,” the woman said, saying the name with a confident tone of voice, like she had known her for ages, “it is good to see that you are safe.”

“Uh…” looking back up at her, searching for any sign that the woman was about to continue to explain to her just how she had come to know her name, Zelda fought to think of something to say. “Thank you… Impa, I presume?”

“That is correct. However, you look at me as though you are confused about how I came to know your name.” looking from Zelda towards first Ganondorf and then Link, Impa shook her head. “I take it that Dorian has failed to inform you about what meaning this place holds for you.” without waiting or a response, she let out a deep sigh, having already halfway turned from them again when Zelda thought to move, swinging one leg over the side of the car only to almost trip as the hours of not moving caught up with her, making her movements slow and sluggish.

“Wait!” Zelda called out, running to catch up with Impa as she twirled around to look back over at her once again. “What do you mean? What should he have told us about?”

But Impa did not answer her. Instead, she leant to the side, clearly looking towards where Ganondorf and Link had yet to wake up, a frown slowly forming on her face. “Perhaps he was right. With how they are looking right now, I doubt that any of you would be able to handle the truth.”

Zelda could practically feel her only chance of receiving any kind of explanation for what was going on, why the Yiga Clan had decided to guard a sword they had named after the sword of legends, why Dorian and his men had been willing to risk their lives to save them only to abandon them the moment they reached Kakariko Village, a village that should not exist, how there could be so many people there when almost the entire world had perished, or why they all talked about them like they had known that they would arrive, slip away, but she refused to give up just yet. Somehow, Impa held the answers to at least some of her questions, and she had not come all this way, had not decided to trust Dorian after someone from his group had chased her into the icy waters of Regencia River, to give up, and so, she reached out, barely managing to catch hold of her sleeve.

“No, please, Impa, I need to know what is going on.” Zelda heard how her voice rose, could practically see it in Impa’s face as she turned back towards her, casting a single glance towards the fabric of her sleeve that was undoubtedly crumpled now that Zelda had grabbed onto it, but other than letting go of Impa’s sleeve, she did not relent. “We were attacked, at first by the Yiga Clan, but Dorian certainly gave give us reason to believe that he wanted us dead as well. We decided to trust him and come here because we were promised some answers—my friend, he got injured in the attack, and Dorian told us that he would receive the help he needed if we just came here with him!”

“And so he will.” Impa motioned towards a point behind her.

Already halfway knowing what must have happened, Zelda turned around with her heart beating madly in her chest, only to see how a group of about five people she had never seen before in her life had gathered behind them, two stretchers lying on the ground next to the motorcycle as they lifted both Ganondorf and Link out of the sidecar with expressions that did not betray any kind of surprise at their presence. Instead, they seemed weirdly calm about it all, Zelda seeing a woman lean towards the man standing next to her, gesturing towards something in the car, no doubt having spotted where they had ended up placing the sword at their feet to try to keep the risk of further injuries at a minimum. They stood there like they did not find any of it weird at all, leaving Zelda as the one to stare up at them while she tried to recall just when they could have arrived, how she had missed them moving towards the motorcycle with two stretchers. But she was at a loss for answers, the only explanation she was able to think of being that she had been too preoccupied with trying to get answers from Impa to notice her surroundings.

Impa touched her hand, instantly bringing Zelda back to reality to look over at her as she pointed towards the house she had just left. “Come with me. You need rest as well. I promise you that everything will make sense very soon. You just have to remember and allow yourself to forget what you think you know.”

With how Zelda was no longer sure about anything in her life, it should have been a simple enough task, and yet, she found herself resisting, continuing to look back towards her friends as Impa began to lead her towards the house, tugging at her hand to make her follow. The people who were lifting Ganondorf and Link out of the sidecar seemed gentle enough, one of them moving to support Ganondorf’s head as they carried him the short distance between the bike and the stretcher, but Zelda still felt her heart skip a beat as the sun shining down from the sky above them allowed her to fully take in his condition for the first time in days, revealing how the bandage had turned almost completely red, the blood dripping from where Link had tied the ends of the strip of fabric together to keep it in place.

“And my friends?” Zelda heard herself say the words, part of her mind still replaying the moment the drop of blood hit the white fabric of the stretcher over and over again. “Will they…?”

The answer came immediately, Impa not even looking back at them. “They will be just fine, trust me.”

Everything about the situation seemed to tell her nothing else than to do the exact opposite of that, to tear her hand out of Impa’s grasp and run back to her friends to demand to stay with them wherever they might be taken to, and yet, Zelda found herself nodding, allowing Impa to continue to lead her towards the house without protesting. Not that protesting would have helped much as she walked along, following Impa through a village she had not thought was real until just a few minutes ago, without supplies and with the only weapon they had having already been found.

Casting a glance over her shoulder, Zelda saw how the very people who had just lifted Ganondorf and Link out of the sidecar gathered around the fifth member of their little team, all of them looking over at her as she held up the sword, gesturing towards it. It was apparent that they were discussing something, but the distance between them was already far too great for Zelda to be able to overhear any of it. All she knew was what she could see, that they seemed to reach some kind of agreement, the woman shaking her head in response to something the man to her right said, the group splitting up, lifting up the stretchers to begin transporting Ganondorf and Link away from the motorcycle, with the woman following along after them, still carrying the sword. But where Zelda would have assumed that they would take them towards the same house Impa was leading her to, they turned away from the main road, instead heading towards a little cluster of houses towards the right side of where the mountain pass had opened up to reveal the hidden village. The next moment, they were no longer visible from the road leading towards Impa’s house, and so, Zelda followed along behind Impa as she walked up the steps to her house, opening both doors at once and holding them open while Zelda ducked below her left arm.

The room, despite being located next to a mountain that Zelda had assumed would make it difficult to get enough sunlight inside the house, was well-lit, the windows behind her aided by a couple of lamps scattered throughout the room. However, it was not just a matter of lamps and sunlight. As Zelda stepped forwards, there was an undeniable glow coming from an orb located directly next to where the wall opened up to a staircase leading towards what Zelda assumed was the second floor of the house.

“Impa—” Zelda began, not looking away from the orb as she began to ask whether or not she was the only one seeing it.

She never got to finish the question, for the next moment, the sensation of being hit by what felt like the momentum of a train knocked her off-balance, Zelda having to grab onto the orb to keep herself from falling over as she looked back to see perhaps the last person she would have expected to meet again.

Her old physics teacher had just almost tackled her in an attempt at hugging her, having seemingly only stepped away because Impa had walked over to, with a patient smile, pull at her arm until she gave Zelda some space. The sentence kept on repeating in her head, Zelda soon giving up on making it make any more sense by continuing to tell herself that it was really happening to instead simply stare at her.

Purah looked just like she had always done, the huge dress that seemed to be the one exception to the rule about how they had to be careful not to wear anything flowy lest it might somehow be blown into the flame of their Bunsen burners during experiments and the big glasses instantly dispelling any idea Zelda might have had about the possibility of the woman in front of her being anyone but her old physics teacher.

Zelda had barely got more than half a second to try to make sense of what she was seeing when Purah began speaking, her voice having the same the same slightly shrill edge to it that it had always had. “Zelda! I can’t believe that you are really here! I mean, I know that Impa told me to be patient and all that, but after all those weeks, I was beginning to prepare for the worst—tell me, how was it out there? I am sure that you would have done a great job of preparing for this if you had been able to know about what was to come—you were always such a good student, after all—but I wouldn’t blame you if you were unable to do much, though I hope that you were able to use some of the things I taught you to stay safe—speaking of which, I heard that there was a battle between you and the two others and the Yiga Clan. Is that true or was it just Olkin being angry that Dorian sent him back home? I mean, I get it if it was; Dorian always complains about how Olkin and Steen let their own rivalry get in the way of their missions, but it sounded like it might be true, especially considering how careless the Yiga Clan has got, coming so close to the village—speaking of which, did you get any scars during the battle? I heard about your companions, but what about you?” Purah spoke so quickly that it approached a point where it felt almost like she was trying to break through the sound barrier by throwing out the words like projectiles, not giving anyone around her as much as a single second to try to think of an answer before she had readied the next metaphorical attack.

In the middle of all the things she did not know, while staying in a village that should not have existed, without her friends around her and without any way of making sure that they would be all right, it was the greatest comfort Zelda could have received. It was indisputable proof that she had really found her old teacher in the ruins of the world around them.

“I don’t know, Purah,” Zelda admitted. Though she tried not to let it happen, she could hear the twinge of bitterness in her voice as she glanced towards Impa who was still standing behind Purah, not giving any indication that she was about to tell her anything about what was going on or where exactly she was, “I have just arrived. But I do know that Olkin told you the truth. We really did meet the Yiga Clan in Clock Town. They—they seemed relatively friendly, if a bit…” Zelda paused, trying her best to conjure up a word that could accurately describe the monotonous voice, the way only one of them had actually spoken to them, the total lack of gesticulation and how the masks had covered up any facial expressions, “peculiar, at first, but then they showed us some sword, and Link walked towards it, pulling the sword out of the pedestal it had been left in before any of us could stop him, and before we knew it, the Yiga Clan was trying to kill us.”

“Link?” seeming oddly calm about the fact that they had almost been killed, Purah tilted her head to the side. “His name is Link? Is it—”

“He didn’t attend Castle Town Gymnasium,” Zelda said, interrupting Purah before she would have got the chance to list the dozens of Links in their year, “he grew up on a ranch in the Akkala Highlands… I—I assume that he went to a school over there.”

She knew almost nothing about him. It was something she should have realised before then, something she should have made a better attempt at changing back when she had the chance. As Zelda looked back at all the hours they had spent in silence, first accompanied by the clear animosity between Ganondorf and Link and then the fact that she knew that they had been talking and sharing secrets when they had thought that she would not notice, she could see all the times she should have walked over to them to insist that they should tell each other more about themselves. But she had remained silent. She had remained silent and now, she was alone in a strange house in a strange village from the legends, talking with her physics teacher whom she had believed to be dead, with Impa standing next to them, not quite glaring daggers at Purah, but also not looking anywhere near as welcoming as she had done when walking out to greet Zelda, without knowing when or if she would see them again.

Zelda refused to cry, not when she could not be sure that she was entirely safe yet and certainly not when in the presence of a stranger and her teacher, but she could still feel the sting of tears as she found herself looking directly down at a spot in front of her left shoe where a ring of slightly darker wood spoke of a burn in the past.

“Purah.” Zelda heard Impa’s voice as though she was underwater, barely able to make out what she was saying above the sound of movements as Impa reached out to place a hand on Purah’s shoulder. “I think it is time for Zelda to head upstairs to get some rest. These last couple of weeks must have been exhausting for her.”

Impa was more right than Zelda had been able to realise before she had found other people and finally experienced the blessing of being told to let other people handle her problems. However, for as much as she should have let them do it, listened to the people around her, Dorian, Impa, and Purah, as they all seemed to tell her, whether explicitly or implicitly, to relax, Zelda could not bring herself to obey the instruction, fearing that if she first were to let out the breath she felt like she had been holding since the phones had stopped working, she would collapse completely, without any hope of ever being able to find the strength to rise from the ground again.

So even though she wanted for nothing more than to do exactly as Impa told her to, Zelda shook her head and straightened her back to look down at her. “No. I was told that I would be given answers if I came to Kakariko Village; Dorian promised me that you would be able to tell me what was happening, why we were almost killed by a group of people that were obsessed with some sword and the idea of us being some kind of chosen ones, but I am here, more confused than ever, and you have told me nothing. I was told that there would be people here who could help my friend, but so far, all that has happened is that I have been separated from him and my other friend, making it so that I can no longer be sure that they are safe. And that is not even to mention the fact that Link was not gravely injured when we agreed to come here with Dorian, and yet, he still has not woken up.” Zelda took a step towards Impa, the eye painted on her hat making her feel like it was staring at her as she continued. “I was promised answers, and now, I demand that I receive them.”

Sending her an unreadable look, Impa let out a sigh. “Look, Zelda, I know that you have every reason to be frustrated, but trust me when I say that you want to get the chance to sleep in a proper bed before hearing the truth about what has happened to you.” holding up her hands in a placating gesture, Impa brought an early end to Zelda’s attempt at telling her that she did not care about anything other than the truth. “Your friends are perfectly safe. Purah was the one to think of the… let us agree to say that it is an alternative method that we are currently using to heal them, and she will tell you the same thing if you ask her. As for Link, I assume that he was the one to wield the Master Sword?”

Hesitating to tell her the truth, debating whether or not she would be able to get a proper answer if she asked why she was calling the sword by the same name as the Yiga Clan, Zelda ended up giving in with a nod. “Yes, he was.”

Impa opened her mouth, but before she got the chance to say anything, Purah had cut in, both metaphorically and physically jumping in front of Impa as she squeezed herself into the space between them, forcing Zelda to take a step back as she began to talk, her hands moving rapidly in front of her, almost giving off the impression that she was trying to carry on two conversations at once. “Your friend will be all right, Zelda, don’t worry about him. What has happened to him is perhaps not normal, but also not unexpected, given the circumstances. I assume that you got the opportunity to see him pour his very soul into trying to use the sword to defend himself or attack others who posed a threat to him.” pausing for a fraction of a second, Purah looked up at her, appearing to find the answer she wanted without Zelda having to say anything, as she did not let herself be slowed down at all. “Yeah, I see that you did. In that case, unless the texts were wrong, you must have noticed that he fought with a kind of strength and skill that far exceeded his own, and, like you know, energy cannot come from nothing, so the Master Sword would have had to use his energy to give him the strength and skill he did not possess at the time. Your friend—Link, you said? Yes, Link will be fine. He is merely very tired right now.”

“Thank you, Purah,” Impa said, cutting in with a tone of voice that did not leave any doubts about how she would not have her interrupt her again as she stepped around her to come face to face with Zelda once again, “and just as Link is currently doing everything he can to help himself by giving his body time to rest, you, Zelda, should really try to get some sleep. Then, once you are fully rested, I promise you that you will be given an explanation for everything that has been happening to you and to the world around you.” after she had gone all the way to Kakariko Village to receive exactly that, only to be told once more that she would have to wait for a bit longer to get some answers, Impa must have known that Zelda would not have accepted her suggestion, for she did not give her even a moment to protest before she turned away from her, raising her voice as she looked towards the staircase leading up to the upper level of the house. “Paya! I know that you have been listening in on the conversation, so will you please show Zelda where she will sleep?”

A girl stepped out of the shadows.

With how her white hair created a stark contrast to the shadows she had just left, the symbol of the Sheikah that had been drawn onto her forehead and the tear continuing down the bridge of her nose only serving to make Zelda further unable to look away from her, Zelda could not understand how she had been able to miss her, the girl walking through the room to reach them with quick, unsure steps that made it clear that she would have preferred to have been left in the shadows, her eyes darting back and forth between Zelda, Impa, and Purah as she stopped in front of them.

Smoothing out what had to be an imaginary wrinkle in her clothes, she bowed her head at Impa. Zelda did not miss how she kept on looking down at the floor as she spoke, just as she noted the way the tips of her ears became dusted with a light blush as she spoke. “Zelda, grandmother?”

Grandmother? Zelda mouthed the word to Purah, receiving nothing but the same wide grin that usually preceded some kind of experiment that would have made the principal give her a lecture on the importance of safety practises in the laboratory if she had been there in return. Trying her best to fit in the knowledge about the girl being Impa’s granddaughter next to the first impression she had got of her, Zelda looked back over at her, catching her looking at her, only for Paya to immediately avert her gaze when she noticed that she was watching her.

Glancing back and forth between them for a moment, Impa sounded almost amused as she nodded towards her granddaughter. “Yes, Paya, this is Zelda. We will talk about her past and her reasons for being here tomorrow. Zelda has a long journey behind her, so now, it is important that she is able to relax and get some rest.”

Casting another glance in Zelda’ direction, Paya turned bright red before looking back at Impa. “I—” Zelda could hear the protest that was about to come, but the moment before Zelda could have sworn that she would have refused to do it, Paya turned towards her. She did not quite meet her gaze, looking at a point directly next to her face as she spoke to her, but had it not been for how she had so clearly been nervous and tried to avoid being seen before, Zelda doubted that she would have noticed any of it as Paya spoke. “Come with me. We didn’t know that you would arrive today, so we didn’t have time to prepare anything special for you, but there is an extra bed upstairs that you can use.”

There was something she was not saying. In fact, as Zelda looked towards Impa and Purah, she was willing to bet that all the things the people around her seemed determined to avoid talking about were all somehow related to the reason the Yiga Clan had been so determined to kill them, the reason Dorian had been willing to throw himself and his team headfirst into a deadly battle for a group of strangers.

The Master Sword. Zelda tried to turn the word in her mind. A sword that had, according to the legends, been blessed by Hylia herself and created to be part of the key to defeating evil. The fact that they referred to a sword as the Master Sword would certainly appear to imply that, no matter what the exact details of it may be, part of their group built on the idea of the Triforce. It was the only thing that would make sense, the only reason Zelda could see for them being convinced that they might be able to cause the apocalypse and for why they had insisted she, Link, and Ganondorf were some kind of chosen heroes. In a world where Link could really have drawn the Master Sword of legends, it was certainly a probable conclusion to draw, and though the Yiga Clan having latched on to the old legends to use in their delusions did not explain everything that had happened, it was enough to explain just why they had been so determined to see them dead, why they had turned their weapons against them the moment Link had drawn the sword.

From out of the corner of her eye, Zelda noticed that Purah was smiling at her. Noticing that she was looking at her, Purah sent a telling glance in the direction of Impa before, holding up her hand to block the sound from reaching her, whispering a handful of words to Zelda. “You are so close to seeing it, Zelda. Promise me to think about it as you go to sleep, will you?”

“Purah,” from next to Zelda, Paya let out a sigh that was more than enough to let Zelda know that Purah behaved the exact same way outside a classroom as she did inside it, “please. You heard what grandmother said.”

Making a show out of winking at Zelda, Purah returned the pleading look with one of total innocence. “I am not telling her anything. I am merely letting Zelda know that, as her teacher, I advise her to think about what she is seeing and keep in mind the fact that even if it appears unlikely to be true, sometimes the first explanation we can think of is actually be the one that is correct—nothing that my dear sister could ever fault me for after how much time she spent convincing me that I had what it would take to become a teacher.”

For the second time in a matter of minutes, Zelda found herself staring back and forth between the people in the room, from Paya to Impa and then over at Purah. If she had been asked to say who the odd man out in the group was, she would not have hesitated to point towards herself first and then at Purah, and now, Purah stood here, the physics teacher who had once drawn a triangle on the blackboard to illustrate the concept of how oxygen, warmth and flammable material were all necessities for a fire before bothering to extinguish the small fire that had spread to her notes on the table, calling Impa her sister like it was something Zelda should in any way, shape, or form been able to realise on her own. Looking back and forth between the two, Zelda tried her best to try to find any similarities, but other than the white hair, there really was nothing that would have made her guess that they could be related.

“Don’t ask about it.” Zelda was pulled back to reality by Paya whispering to her, her entire body angled away from her and the blush still apparent in her cheeks, but whispering to her nonetheless. “If you do, she is just going to begin talking about some kind of device she built that she claims is responsible for her youthful look—her words, not mine—and then you are never going to get her to stop again.”

That much, Zelda could believe, so, sending Paya a grateful smile only to regret it as Paya froze up, simply staring at her for a moment before averting her gaze and mumbling something about having already prepared the bed, Zelda followed her up the stairs, hearing how a discussion between the two sisters began the moments she turned around the corner, the little snippets she could hear appearing to be about some kind of healing liquid Purah wanted to test out.

Hoping that Impa had been able to somewhat keep Purah from acting the way she had done back in the physics classroom and that the thing she had talked about when assuring her that Ganondorf and Link would be all right had actually been tested before being used on her friends, Zelda shook her head and tried not to think too much about what she could not change, instead focusing on finding the energy to lift her feet enough not to trip over one of the steps as she walked up the last few steps to reach the second floor, soon finding herself stepping into a large room, the ceiling above her head seemingly being the direct underside of the roof. There were no doors, nothing at all to separate the room from the rest of the house below, but as Paya turned around, looking at her for a moment before motioning towards a bed that had been pushed into the left-hand corner of the room, it was easy enough to ignore the sound of raised voices, the wooden flooring beneath her feet doing a relatively good job at muffling the voices.

“Yeah, so this is where you will sleep.” Paya glanced over at her, looking almost apologetic as she shrugged. “I know it is not much, but we didn’t know that you would be arriving today. Though I guess that we still would not have been able to do all that much even if we had known, I mean with how we still haven’t found out if there’s—” she slapped her hand in front of her mouth, her eyes widening. “Oh. I probably shouldn’t say that, not if Impa wants you to rest before being told about all that.”

There was something there, Zelda was sure of that. It should have felt wrong to try to gain more information when she had just been saved by Dorian and brought to a village that was both safe and not a ruin filled with death, like she was asking for too much, but as she stood there, watching as Paya seemed torn between continuing and falling silent, Zelda knew that she could not allow the chance to pass by without at least trying to pursue it, not when she had no way of knowing when she would be presented with one like it again.

Doing her best to keep her demeanour casual, Zelda shifted her weight to the side before looking over at Paya. “Your grandmother, right?” Paya’s silence along with the way she looked down at the floor gave away the answer in a moment, Zelda pushing aside the fact that she had not realised the connection at first to instead tilt her head to the side. “Ah, I see. And with Purah being her sister, that would then mean that—”

“Three people in my family survived. Me, Impa, and Purah. But everyone else… they died. My parents too.” Paya whispered the words, directing them more towards the floorboards than towards Zelda, but she still heard them as clearly as if Paya had yelled in her face.

Was it ever going to stop feeling like a kick in the stomach to learn that everyone around her had lost someone? Zelda doubted it. Having experienced the moment before did nothing to take away the fact that, in that moment, she could almost feel how the world came to a halt around her as Paya wrapped her arms around herself, looking every bit like she wished that she could be anywhere in the world but there, opening her mouth a couple of times like she wanted to add something onto the whispered confession, only to close it again without saying anything.

“Oh,” Zelda said, hoping that the fact that she could not figure out what to say, how to take back the words that had escaped her before she had got the chance to realise how tactless they were, could all be blamed on the exhaustion, “I am sorry, I didn’t realise that—I mean with how many people are living in this village, I just assumed that everyone would have had to have survived, you know perhaps because the mountains around it would have hindered the disease from reaching—” taking a deep breath, Zelda interrupted herself before she could make it even worse by continuing to ramble. “I didn’t think about what I was saying. I am sorry.”

Paya still stood like a statue next to the bed, but at least Zelda could see a hint of light come back into her eyes as she glanced up at her for a moment before once again talking to the floor. “No, it is fine; I get what you were thinking. I also thought that we had found a village that had managed to escape the disease completely when I first came here and Impa told me that it was a place where we could be safe as we waited for—” Paya fell silent, but the silence did more to let Zelda know just what she had been about to say than any words could ever have done.

Holding up her hands, Zelda felt the crease forming between her eyebrows as she added up all the things Paya had said, the fact that the disease had managed to kill what seemed to be most of her family, leaving only three members alive, merciful by the standards she had seen before, but still vicious in its own right, the fact they were not the only ones who had only come to the village after the disease had brought an end to the world they had known, and now this, the fact that they seemed to have come there to wait for someone or something, the way they had treated her, Ganondorf, and Link leaving Zelda with what she assumed was a good guess about who it might be. As she took in the way Paya had clasped her hands in front of her, the action only serving to strengthen the suspicion that she had come seconds away from revealing just what Impa had not wanted her to learn, Zelda knew that she was so close to pulling at the last string that would untie the entire knot and reveal the answers to the mystery.

Careful to keep her emotions from seeping into her voice, Zelda took a step further into the room, bringing her just a bit closer to Paya, hopefully strengthening her attempt at making it seem like an innocuous question when she gestured towards her. “So you also came here recently—just like me, I mean?”

“I…” something passed across Paya’s face, a little of the anxiety that had been present in her eyes fading as she sat down on the bed, “please don’t tell Impa that I told you this.”

It took a moment of Paya sitting there, looking straight ahead, for Zelda to realise that she was waiting for her answer. With what she hoped was a relaxed stance, she walked through the room, sitting down next to Paya before nodding. “I promise that I won’t tell her.”

Another short glance, this time lasting a bit longer than the last one, a couple of seconds of Zelda looking into Paya’ eyes to see something that she could not quite name, something that so clearly differed from the nervousness that seemed to hang in a cloud around her, and then, once again tearing her gaze away from her, Paya began to talk. “All right. I haven’t lived here for very long, just a little over a month, actually.” Paya must have noticed that Zelda was about to open her mouth to remark on how that was nearly the same period of time as what had passed since the world had changed, for she held up her hand, silencing her before she would have got the chance to state the obvious. “Before that, I lived in Deya Village along with… along with the rest of my family. And then—well, given the fact that you are here, you know what happened, I was alone and without anyone to talk with or get help from for the first couple of days before my grandmother appeared at the hotel I had fled to one morning. It—today, I cannot explain why, and to be honest, I am not even sure I knew why back then, but there was something about the fact that she had survived that just… it felt right, like it was something I should have realised before. No matter what, she told me about there being some village in the mountains where her and some other survivors had gone, saying something about prophecies and cycles, and, well,” a hint of something akin to a smile flickered across her face, only to disappear a fraction of a second later, Paya looking down at her hands like her life depended on it. “I was not sure what to think about what she told me, but if there… if there might be other people out there somewhere, I knew that I had to find them, so I went with her, and now, I am here.”

It was a story that left Zelda with more questions than answers. Still, a single look at Paya and the way she had begun to fiddle with the fabric of her tunic, running her hand over it over and over again, how she continued to cast glances in the direction of where the wall opened up towards the staircase, nothing but air separating them from being overheard by Impa, was enough to tell her that she would not be able to further pursue the subject.

However, as Zelda sat there, feeling how the bed rose a little as Paya stood up, she was not sure she would have been able to ask another question even if she had not been absolutely confident that Paya would have refused to answer. It was not about the fact that Impa might hear her, not about how she should be grateful for the village even being there at all and, that Dorian had brought them there, and Impa had welcomed her. Instead, Zelda stayed quiet solely because there was nothing she could have said as Paya hesitated for another moment before leaving the room, the sound of footsteps quickening as she all but ran down the stairs again, only barely giving Zelda enough time to note how the tips of her ears had become even redder than before and that the expression on her face was one of grief and horror.

Flopping down onto the bed, Zelda looked up at the ceiling above her head, the beams that supported the roof almost disappearing into the darkness of the room. It did not get easier. Hearing about how other people had lost everything and seeing the honest grief on their faces as they listed the family members they had lost did not get easier with time, not at all. Instead, it felt almost like it built up inside of her, Zelda closing her eyes for a moment only to see a girl with the same red hair and Ganondorf, a girl who had plaited her hair and piled it up high onto her head, her facial features unclear but having a bit of Link’s general demeanour in the way she laughed, and now this, a vague picture of two people who had the same white hear as Paya. Around her, it seemed like everyone had lost so many people, and there she was, lying in her bed, knowing that she had lost only one. Even that loss was one Zelda had not been able to mourn properly. Why was it that where Paya had told her about Deya Village with a voice that was thick with emotions, running away the moment she had finished her story, but at least telling her when she had asked, Zelda had not been able to do the same and tell about those she had lost? Not to Paya to repay the gesture of telling a total stranger about what was clearly a traumatic event, not to Ganondorf and Link, the people Zelda was closest to picturing when thinking about the fact that Paya still had some family left around her. Inevitably, the thoughts would turn around to make her try to rationalise the fact that, where everyone around her seemed to have lost so many who had been near and dear to them, almost entire families if not all of them, the only family she had had left to lose at the time had been her father. She could count her losses on one hand, and even then, even when it should have come to form a source of grief to have what little family she still had left taken away from her in the blink of an eye, she had spent so much time still holding on to a grudge, first for everything he had done while he had been alive, and then for the fact that he had died before she had got the chance to confront him about any of it.

It felt wrong to even think it, like she should have gone back to Hyrule Castle Town the moment it went through her mind to apologise to his corpse, but as Zelda lay there, closing her eyes and trying to imagine what the families those around her had lost might have looked like, picturing Ganondorf and Link on their sisters’ first day of school, Paya and her parents in Deya Village, her mind closing the gap in her knowledge about just what their home might have looked like with the one memory she had of having glanced at the page on Deya Village in the atlas, she could not help but wonder just why it was that she was picturing Urbosa more than her father when she tried to do the same for herself, Urbosa’s voice and the feeling of how she would never be the first to end a hug fading into the sound of how Link had yelled at them to stay on the ground before jumping in front of the bear and the sensation of Ganondorf’s sweater against her cheek when he had pulled both her and Link in for a hug. The conclusion was right there in front of her, the answer waiting for her to reach out and accept it, and somewhere deep down, Zelda supposed that she might already have done just that, even as she forced herself to push it away, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing the heels of her hands against her eyelids until she saw little patterns of light appear.

A distraction. She had to force her thoughts away from the subject. For as much as she had felt like she had been ready to sleep for a thousand years when she had first set foot in Kakariko Village, Zelda could feel how her thoughts continued to make noise inside her head, refusing to quieten for even a second to give her the peace that would have allowed her to fall asleep. It would not do, not if she wanted to be able to try to convince Impa to tell her what was going on, why they had been attacked and why both she and Dorian treated them like they were somehow important in a way that exceeded being among the few people who had survived the outbreak of the disease.

Hearing Purah’s voice as an echo in her thoughts, Zelda tried her best to empty her mind, to think of nothing but the facts she knew to be true.

The Yiga Clan had clearly expected for someone to come to the museum. That was a fact she could not deny, not with how there had been no signs of surprise to be seen in their behaviour, the leader having led them through room after room, completely focused on what lay ahead as they approached the sword. They had known that they would come, just as they had clearly planned to attack anyone capable of drawing the sword. Closing her eyes, Zelda thought back to the blinding light that had followed. At the time, it had felt natural, like it was something she should have known would happen, the ensuing fight stealing away her attention and the flight that followed making it easy to brush it all aside as a sign that her mind was trying its best to make sense of what did not rationally appear to be possible, but now, lying in the empty room, the voices of Impa and Purah little more than vague mumbling from below, it was no longer so easy to brush it aside as being little more than an effect of having already been on edge, not as she remembered the feeling of being pulled towards the Master Sword, like there had been a voice towards the back of her head urging her to follow Link, Link who had moved as if he was obeying the order of an entity outside his own body as he reached out for the sword.

The Master Sword. That was what both the Yiga Clan and their saviours had referred to it as. Zelda could see their point, at least on a superficial level. With the hilt and the blue and purple colours that had twisted around it, covering the crossguard as well, it certainly looked like a sword that could have been taken from the legends. However, as much as Zelda wanted to leave it at that, to conclude that they had been saved from a group of people obsessed with mythology by another group of people who were perhaps even more absorbed by the legends, living in a village that had been named after the hidden village of legends, there was something about the theory that did not add up, lacking the explanation for just why they had been the ones to be involved in it all. Not only had they been unlucky enough to stumble across the Yiga Clan and for them to decide that they were somehow marked as their enemies, now, Zelda was lying in a bed that had been given to her by strangers, with the promise that her friends would receive the care they had needed, a promise that had been given like it was a matter of course, just as Dorian and his group had risked their lives in an attempt at saving them, the fact that they had then also made Zelda almost drown in her desperation to escape notwithstanding.

Zelda could imagine what Purah would have told her, how she would have sat down next to her the same way she had done in class when explaining to them that they had to record exactly what the experiments showed them rather than what they should have showed, stressing the importance of figuring out common sources of error and uncertainty above getting the expected results, if she had been able to summon the energy to go down to talk with her again. As little sense as it made, it had to be the answer. After all, she had already gone through every other explanation she could think of, none of them capable of explaining just why she had been blinded by light or why there was a village she had never heard about before that was able to support the lives of several survivors while having an uncanny resemblance to the illustrations of how Hyrule had looked centuries ago she had seen in her history textbook.

It was real, and maybe that was what scared her the most, the fact that she did not have an easy answer or something to blame the last few days on that did not also open up the risk that it would become even worse. If her theory was correct, Zelda could only imagine what was to come, the way Paya had seemed to open up just enough to share her story with her only to then raise her guard a moment later, moving away from her in a way that did not leave Zelda with a chance of figuring out just what she had done wrong, playing out in front of her eyes over and over again as Zelda recalled all of the times she and Purah had interrupted themselves while talking to her.

Even if she was wrong about the explanation, that was the one thing Zelda knew for certain: they were trying to keep the truth secret from her. Impa might have insisted that she would tell her when she was rested, but as Zelda turned in the bed, the mattress alternating between being too soft and too firm beneath her for her to find any rest, she could not deny that she refused to believe that that was really the case. They had left the last thing they had been able to cling to, the plan to head to Lurelin Village, behind to go with Dorian, and though Zelda would be the first to admit that she had made the decision while looking towards the bloodied bandage, part of her still felt like she had been tricked, having been made to abandon what had allowed her to make sense of the world to instead find herself without anything to cling on to other than the feelings of guilt that grew in her stomach as she tried to imagine what Ganondorf’s reaction might be once she would have to tell him that she had made the decision to, at the very least, move his goal of sailing across the sea to Labrynna even further into an already uncertain future.

It must have been sometime into the early hours of morning if the time that had passed since she had pretended to be asleep as Paya walked in, the even breathing from the other bed that filled the room within minutes of Paya turning away from her letting Zelda know that she was the only one who had trouble sleeping, was any indication, that the exhaustion finally defeated the racing thoughts, leaving her to first face absolute nothingness as she looked out into the darkness and then nothing at all as she finally fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, they have arrived in Kakariko Village. However, the question of just what has happened and for what reasons they were saved from the Yiga Clan still remains.


	13. Chapter 13

For a moment after waking up, the feeling of the rough blanket against her cheek and the immediate thought that she could not recognise the room she was in nor remember her reasons for being there left Zelda in a state of panic. Throwing the blanket aside, Zelda barely registered the thud of it hitting the floor before she had swung her legs over the side of the bed, the cold floor making her wobble slightly as she pushed herself to stand up rather than taking a moment to figure out what was going on. In the darkness that filled the room, it was impossible for her to make out more than the vague outlines of the furniture that had seemingly all been pushed up against the walls, the bed she had woken up in located towards one end of the room, Zelda recognising the sight of a table in the opposite corner before spotting the figure lying on the bed next to it.

Moving slowly, all too aware of the risk of one of the floorboards creaking under her weight, revealing to the person that she was awake, Zelda began to tiptoe through the room, the distance between her and the other person gradually growing shorter, allowing her to take in the sight of how their silver hair fanned out behind them as they lay on the side, facing the wall next to them rather than Zelda.

It happened like a lever switching in her brain, Zelda looking down at the sleeping figure and remembering both Paya as well as the way she had so suddenly moved away from her the night before, that she had been the one who had led her up to the room to show her her bed after she had first been brought to Kakariko Village.

Zelda had no idea how long she stood there for, looking out into the darkness as the memories came back, first of the moments after she had just arrived to the village and then everything that had preceded that. All she knew was that it was not until the sound of Paya murmuring in her sleep interrupted the silence in the room that she became aware of the fact that she was still standing out in the middle of the room.

Keeping her steps light, it took every last bit of self-control she possessed not to sprint right back to her bed, to instead move slowly so as to avoid alerting anyone around her to the fact that she was awake, lowering herself down onto the mattress once again while pausing every other second to listen for signs that Paya was about to wake up as well as the giveaway sound of the bed creaking before finally, with her heart feeling like it had moved from her chest to instead rest somewhere closer to her throat, reaching out to pick up the blanket again, barely managing to pull it up to her chin and close her eyes when the sound of murmuring was replaced with first the rustle of fabric and then a loud creak as Paya must have moved to stand up, the floorboards protesting the idea and reminding them all of just how old the village had to be to look the way it did.

However, any thoughts were soon brought to a sudden stop as the feeling of being watched followed a series of light footfalls. Focusing on nothing but keeping her eyes shut, her muscles relaxed, and her breathing even, Zelda tried her best to push the idea of her still being asleep into the air around her as she heard how Paya paused for a minute to look down at her before letting out a barely audible sigh and continuing towards the stairs leading down to the main room of the building. Waiting until she was fairly sure that Paya had turned around the corner and then forcing herself to count to a hundred to be certain, Zelda allowed herself to open her eyes again, taking a deep breath to make up for minutes of slowing her breathing.

Kakariko Village was real. Forcing herself to sit up in her bed as she tried to figure out if she should head downstairs along with Paya or remain where she was, that was what her thoughts continued to return to, the fact that she had gone to sleep in a village that should not have existed and had woken up in the same village, every last sense impression being real in a way that rendered the question of whether or not it was possible to wake up in a dream superfluous. It was real, and there was nothing that she could try to tell herself to convince herself that the opposite might be the case, nothing that would allow her to explain it away as another sign of malnutrition.

Thinking about food had been a mistake. That much was clear the moment the thought went through her mind, immediately accompanied by a grumble from her stomach that sounded like it would be loud enough to wake up every last person in the entire village as Zelda instinctively placed a hand on her stomach, the attempt at reducing both the sound and the pain that shot up from her stomach by leaning forwards revealing itself to be futile within seconds as the smell of something warm and sweet began to drift up from the room below, Zelda’s mind conjuring up memories of a time where food had meant more than overcooked pasta and beans that had been heated up until they became somewhat edible if they were lucky before she was able to regain control, her senses immediately joining the rebellion by brushing aside every other thing in the room, every object she could use if the promise of help and being welcome in the village should turn out to have been a trap, to instead turn towards the smell and zero in on it until it might as well have been the only thing to exist in the world.

Bread, Zelda decided. That was what it smelt like, the warm aroma of bread just when it had been taken out of the oven.

Her stomach rumbled again, this time a bit louder, and Zelda could hear the scream for her to get up and go downstairs, the insistence that no danger could ever pose a greater threat to her than the option of not being able to eat the bread right in that moment. And yet, she stayed still, keeping her feet firmly planted on the floor as she crossed her arms in front of her stomach, feeling how the bottom of her ribcage jutted out as she tried her best to ignore the hunger pangs to instead focus on the fact that she had to appear at least somewhat determined and rested if she wanted to have any hope of being able to convince Impa to give her the answers she had promised her the day before.

Zelda wanted to say that she had been too lost in her thoughts and her attempts at figuring out how to approach the task that she had not heard the loud creaks of someone walking up the stairs, but she was not even able to convince herself of that. Instead, she sat there, already looking towards where the walls opened up towards the stairs as Paya stepped into the room, carrying a tray.

Standing there, with what little light was able to reach the second floor behind her, her white hair making it look like a nimbus around her head, Zelda would not have hesitated to point towards Paya if asked what she would expect one of the goddesses’ mortal forms to look like. However, what really completed the impression of the girl she had met the day before perhaps being one of the Golden Goddesses in disguise was the sight of what was on the tray. A plate with golden bread, a mug of something that looked like milk, and a little glass jar of what Zelda decided was butter seemed to beckon her from across the room, Zelda only realising that she had unfolded her arms as she pressed her palms against the mattress below to force herself to stand up. It was a small breakfast, only a single slice of bread and a little cup of milk, but even then, it was more than she had thought she would ever get to see again.

Perhaps Paya could see some of that in her eyes, looking from Zelda towards the tray for a moment. Maybe she saw exactly how Zelda had to restrain herself to keep herself from running towards her as she placed the tray down on the table next to her bed, deciding not to mention it at all. Or maybe she did not notice it at all, merely looking at her for a moment before turning on her heel to walk back towards the stairs. It was not until she had reached the first step that she did anything to acknowledge the fact that Zelda was still in the room, sending the tray stolen glances, by pointing towards the table without even looking at Zelda. “Impa told me to tell you to come downstairs once you have eaten.” with that, Paya disappeared down the stairs.

However, Zelda did not need for her to say another word after that. That short sentence had contained everything she needed to know, and so, almost sprinting through the room, she sat down by the table and began eating.

The bread was warm, almost burning her tongue as she began tearing off small chunks to dip on the milk. From somewhere deep down, most likely from some class she had attended, Zelda could recall how a teacher had once told them about refeeding syndrome and about how the stomach could shrink down after long periods of not eating, and if she stopped to think about what she was doing, Zelda was sure that she would have known that devouring her food at such a rate that it let her burn her tongue multiple times before she could bring herself to use the milk to cool the slice of bread was not a good idea. So she did not allow herself to stop and think, instead continuing to the butter the moment she reached the bottom of the mug of milk, using little chunks of bread to scoop it out of the jar. Only once the slice of bread was completely gone did she stop for a moment to try to plan out her next action.

So Impa had sent Paya to let her know to come downstairs immediately after finishing breakfast. Slowing down slightly, the food no longer as appetising to her as it had been moments before, Zelda went over her options. That she had to go downstairs eventually was a fact, both with how she was on the second floor of a building, in a room without any balconies or windows she could otherwise have used to escape, and the fact that, for as annoyed as she was that she still had yet to actually get any answers, Zelda knew that she could not get around Impa if she wished to learn more about what had happened during the past couple of days. But after the last day, after she had arrived in the village, exhausted and lacking the willpower to actually try to argue with Impa as she began to lead her out of the room, sending Paya along with her, it was clear that she would need a plan of action if she wanted to get answers. However, a plan required for her to have anything of importance to withhold until she would receive the answers she wanted, and as much as Zelda tried to think of something, she could not convince herself that any of what she was wearing, the shirt she had borrowed from Ganondorf already looking more and more like she had ran it over with a car to then leave it outside for a year, could fulfil that role. But perhaps if she broadened her perspective to not just consider herself, their little group would be able to find something of value to Impa.

Zelda could feel how the smile built up gradually as she lowered the last bite of bread back onto the plate, the idea appearing fully formed in her mind moments after she had first thought to pursue it. However, it all depended on her getting the chance to talk with Link before having to speak with Impa, and so, Zelda swallowed the last bite, having to cough twice is she felt the bread try to force its way up her throat again when she pushed back the chair, making it scrape against the floor in her hurry to get downstairs and out of the house to find Link before Impa would notice that she was there.

Moving across the room towards the staircase, Zelda made sure to stay near the walls, moving as slowly as she could convince herself to, careful to spread her weight out over her foot with each and every step. It worked somewhat, allowing her to turn around the corner without having anyone outright tell her that they noticed her presence. When she reached the landing, however, Zelda found herself coming to a sudden halt once more.

Both Ganondorf and Link were already there.

In the moment her mind caught up with her eyes, all the plans of going to ask Link about the Master Sword fell away to instead make room for the fact that Ganondorf was really there, less than five metres away from her. Sitting at a little table that Zelda was sure had not been there the day before, Ganondorf was still eating breakfast, grinning towards Link as he spread butter on the slice of bread on his plate, wearing a set of clothes that looked like it could have belonged to Dorian.

He looked healthy. Blinking twice, Zelda would almost have expected to see him turn pale, the greyish undertone creeping back over his face to reveal that the impression of him being fully healed had been nothing more than wishful thinking, but he continued to sit there, reaching out for the slice of bread only to then pause to laugh at something Link had said. Although she knew that she might come to regret it, Zelda glanced towards his sleeve, searching for the tell-tale sign of the wound that even the slightest trace of blood would be, seeing nothing but the creamy colour of the fabric of his shirt despite taking a step forward to bring herself closer to the scene in front of her.

Immediately, the floorboards creaked below her, the conversation coming to an end within a fraction of a second as both Ganondorf and Link turned to look at her. Noticing the way Link’s hand instantly went to his side, making it appear like he had been reaching for a weapon and how Ganondorf had already jumped to his feet, his eyes wide and with his centre of gravity lowered slightly by the time he recognised her, Zelda knew for a fact that her memories had been true. Ganondorf really had been injured, just as Link had been impossible to awaken back when they had arrived in Kakariko Village.

There was a moment of silence, all three of them staring wordlessly at each other, before Link, slowly moving his hand from his side like that would have ever been enough to hide his reaction, sent her a strained smile. “Ah, Zelda. I am sorry about that—Paya had told us that it would probably be a while before you would be ready to come down to join us, so we had not expected to see you this soon, not even to mention the fact that you are scarily good at being quiet.” the laugh he punctuated the sentence with, while by no means genuine, could have been a lot worse as Link gestured towards the empty spot next to Ganondorf. “It is good to see you down here already, though.”

Moving over to sit down next to Ganondorf, Zelda looked towards him. If he was thinking that she had not noticed what he was doing, he must have assumed that she was more naïve than what she hoped to have given him reason to. Still, if Link wanted to pretend that there was nothing suspicious about the village, then Zelda could humour him until she would have enough evidence to prove it for good. So she sat down, accepting the plate Ganondorf pushed towards her, trying her best to pretend to at least look down at the slice of bread before repaying the gesture with a little smile, going through the motions of civility that felt like they were a skill far away from her life now that Zelda had nothing but the faint echo of her father to lean against as she forced herself to take a deep breath before being able to put up a façade similar to Link’s.

“Thank you very much, Link. I could have said the same thing about you. I thought that you had been taken away to be treated for…” grasping for words, Zelda ended up pointing towards him, hoping that the flick of the wrist could encompass everything that had happened since they had walked into Clock Town and perhaps even before that as well, “to be able to rest for a moment. You too, Ganondorf.” unlike the smiles she sent Link, Zelda knew better than to try to put on the same veneer of not finding every last thing about the village strange while facing Ganondorf, and so, she kept on looking right past him towards Link as she continued, the lie falling away around her. “I—it is really good to see that you are all right. We—there was a moment where it seemed almost like—like—” her voice broke, leaving Zelda unable to do much more than focus on keeping her breathing even, carefully keeping the sting in her eyes from being able to become tears that would roll down her cheeks. She had gone downstairs to get a chance to speak with Impa. Zelda did not have to think twice to know that allowing her to step into the room to see her in tears would not aid her in achieving that goal.

Still, despite her best efforts, as Ganondorf slung his arm around her shoulders, Zelda knew that he had guessed both what she had been about to say and the reason for why she had so suddenly fallen silent.

He kept his voice low, his tone of voice was one that should perhaps have made her feel like he was talking to some wounded animal, careful not to frighten or upset it even more, but as Zelda leant into the one-armed hug, there was only the warmth of knowing that he had survived to be found. “Yeah,” Ganondorf chuckled, the feeling of the fabric of his tunic moving against her cheek letting Zelda know that he had turned his head to look over at Link, “I was told that when I woke up—not that there was a risk that I would have died, but that the two of you were probably worrying about me. I know that I would have worried about you as well, if you had been the one to get hurt, so I suppose that it is useless to tell you that I don’t think there ever was a risk that I would die, but I am going to do so anyway. That reminds me; Zelda, once you have had a chance to grow used to all of this, you are going to want to look at the machine I woke up in. It was—what would you say, Link? It looked like some kind of bathtub, didn’t it? Just far comfier to lie in than that description makes it sound.”

“You certainly looked like you were comfortable when I woke up,” Link remarked, the snicker that followed his words sounding far less forced than his smile from before had looked, “I mean, if I had not known what had happened, I would never have guessed that you had just taken a hit from the Yiga Clan’s weapons for me.”

“No, I suppose not—you are welcome, by the way. From the way I understood it, that is also the point of the machines—accelerated healing, I mean, or at least that was the part of Purah’s rambling explanation that I actually managed to catch before she had moved on to something different.”

“Wait, Purah?” Zelda frowned and moved out of the embrace, trying to fit in Purah going to take care of her friends with what she knew of her actions and the fact that she had been right there in the house just the day before.

Ganondorf looked down at her. From the way he tilted his head to the side, Zelda knew that he had misunderstood the reason for her confusion. “Yes,” he said, exchanging a glance with Link that had perhaps been meant to be discreet but was really anything but that, “she told us that you were one of her students, so we were actually planning on asking you if you had any idea about what she had been talking about in regards to her—what did she call it, Link?”

“Dunno.” Link shrugged, already tearing off a chunk of bread. “I barely even left it an hour before you did. I only managed to get her to repeat the name a couple of times and missed it both times. I think it was Resurrection-something.”

Not looking entirely convinced, Ganondorf nodded. “Probably. Anyway, Zelda, is that something you have ever heard her talk about? This kind of—well, almost bathtub-like thing that we were both placed into. She talked a lot about accelerated healing and helping the body with speeding up the natural process, if that helps.”

Accelerated healing? Zelda wanted to say that she had no idea what he was talking about, but as she tried to recall if that had ever been a concept Purah had brought up during some of her attempts at changing her plans for the lesson to allow her to talk about the last thing she had stumbled across and found interesting, though she could not remember any exact moment where she had mentioned something like what Ganondorf and Link were describing, there was something about it that did not allow her to reject the idea of it being the case.

Hoping that a shrug was enough to hide the rising feeling of there being something she had forgot about, something important she should have done a long time ago, Zelda ended up directing her answer more towards the slice of bread in front of her than towards Ganondorf and Link. “I don’t know. She might have, but even if she has, I have no idea what you are talking about, much less how it would function. Besides,” gesturing for Link and Ganondorf to lean in towards her, Zelda let her voice drop to a whisper, the fact that Link and Ganondorf both hesitated for a second before moving closer towards her not doing much to help chase off the feeling that she was the only one who was actually trying to look out for their wellbeing, “I don’t think that we should be discussing the secrets of this village so loudly. It is clear that no one here actually wants us to learn anything about what is going on.”

This time, Ganondorf did not even try to hide the worry in his eyes as he looked away from her, towards Link, and then back at her again. Clearing his throat and no doubt trying his best to appear understanding, Ganondorf put a hand on her shoulder, something about the way he leant forwards a little to bring his face to the same level as hers as he spoke making it feel like he was trying to explain something very simple to a little child as he spoke. “Zelda, we have already spoken with Purah. Surely, you know that it was practically impossible for her not to tell Link and me everything about how her invention worked. Had it not been for the fact that I think she found herself forced to realise that we did not understand a word of what she was saying, I think that she would have kept us there for far longer.”

Trying her best to remind herself that he had not been there, that she was the only one among the three of them who had been awake and alert to experience how both Dorian and Impa had tried their best to keep them from being able to figure out what was going on or why they had been brought to Kakariko Village, Zelda shook her head. “No, no, I get that Purah tells you everything about her research the moment she happens to notice your presence. That was not what I was talking about.”

“Then what is it?” Link dropped the whisper to instead send her a look full of concern. “Zelda, did you get enough sleep? Because I know that we have been through a lot and that you were the only one of us who was not placed in one of Purah’s healing bathtubs, and with how Ganondorf and I also went straight to sleep after waking up there, it would be understandable if—”

“Link, please, listen to me right now.” Zelda could hear the desperation in her voice, but there was nothing she could do to stop it from happening, not as it seemed like they were being wilfully ignorant of how nothing added up, not the fact that they had been saved from the Yiga Clan, not that there had to be some kind of advanced technology among the buildings that looked like something from several centuries ago for the kind of healing process that they seemed to have experienced to be possible, and certainly not the fact that there was an entire village full of people, even if Paya’s mumbled confession would indicate that they might not all have lived there before the end of the world. “I am not talking about Purah. I was the only one who was awake when we arrived here, so you did not experience what it was like, Dorian having promised that we would receive answers, only to then meet Impa and have her refuse to tell me anything at all—”

“Impa?” Link said, cutting in. “The nice old lady who brought us breakfast? Zelda, what are you talking about—she answered every single one of our questions from the moment we woke up.”

The world around her fell silent, Zelda having to fight to remain present as the fact that it was not a matter of every sound having fallen away, but rather her no longer hearing them, dawned on her. Impa had told them. Instantly, the question of just what Zelda could have done to make Impa decide to regard her as someone who could not be trusted with information appeared in her mind, loud and persistent in a way that was entirely impossible to ignore as Zelda opened her mouth, only to find herself forgetting every last word she had ever known for multiple seconds. “I—what? She did?”

Link nodded, but from his spot directly next to her, Ganondorf must have noticed her reaction, for he held up his hand to silence Link before he had got a chance to do more than breathe in before looking back down at her again. Zelda could have pinpointed the exact moment where he realised that she had been kept in the dark since she had first arrived from the way his eyes widened, which was the exact reason she chose not to say anything. The short glimpse of how the fragile smile faltered was enough for her to wish never to have to see it again, making her keep her gaze carefully directed towards her plate as Ganondorf spoke next to her.

“I… I am sure that she had her reasons for doing so,” Ganondorf said, his voice revealing the fact that they all knew that that was a lie, “I mean, it is not like we were told a lot either—”

Zelda knew where the conversation was going. There would be an attempt at convincing her that she had done nothing wrong and then Impa would show up to confirm that she had indeed managed to turn people against her far quicker than she had thought herself capable of. Had it not been for the fact that she might just have robbed herself of important information, Zelda could have laughed at how the situation confirmed her father’s words about her being unable to properly connect with the people around her. She had been so adamant that she was doing well in school and that that was enough, and now, the universe had proven her wrong.

As much as she wished to remain silent, to wait and see what would happen, she found that she could not stay quiet for long, and so, she found herself mumbling the question that kept on repeating in her mind to Ganondorf. “What did she tell you?”

“Just, you know…” Ganondorf looked towards Link, clearly searching for advice, Link sending him a panicked look, “she told us about the village and that it is has proven to be a safe hiding place from the Yiga Clan, that… uh… that they had waited for us to come for quite a while, but that they had not known that it would happen just yet. Actually,” a tiny smile graced his face as Ganondorf turned towards Link, “that was the exact reason they gave us for the fact that we could not go see you immediately after waking up—that they had not known that we would come and had found themselves having to split us up to find a place for all of us to sleep. That, or perhaps Link had managed to talk in his sleep and insult this place, because for some reason, they ended up giving us two beds in the empty house up on the hill, far away from the rest of the village.”

Maybe Ganondorf had meant for her to laugh alongside him and Link, finally calmed down by the suggestion that she might actually be the one who was favoured by their hosts, haven been given the bed in what appeared to be the main house of the village, but as Zelda sat there, taking in the fact that, for as confident as Link had sounded when declaring that they had received answers to their questions, that might simply have been due to them not asking the same questions as she had, all she could do was to let out a sigh of relief. “Maybe,” she ended up agreeing, “but that was not what I was talking about when I said that I haven’t been told anything. I—I tried to get Impa to tell me why they saved us and why we had been brought to this village just after I arrived. I mean,” looking towards the two others, Zelda hoped that their raised eyebrows was a sign that they too had realised the gaping holes in the explanations they had been given so far, “you would think that the best way to keep a secret hidden village safe from attacks would be by keeping it secret from everyone. And that is not even to mention the fact that it seems like we mean something to them, that we are more than just a group of fellow survivors. I… I think that—” she could feel how the answer was lying right there, directly in front of her, simply waiting for her to come forwards and recognise it.

Of course, that was the moment where the doors were thrown open, Impa stepping into the room as they fell shut behind her once more. Letting her gaze move over then, Zelda trying to decide whether she was imagining things or if Impa really did pause at her for a moment longer than she did with Ganondorf and Link, Impa moved over to sit down across from them at the table. With calm movements that did not show them whether or not she was even aware of the fact that they were all staring at her, Impa pushed the plate aside, clearing the space in front of her, before looking directly over at Zelda. “I apologise for the delay. Dorian had to talk with me about some… issues that have arisen between the members of his team.” from the way she said it, Zelda was willing to bet that the issue were two different issues, bearing the name Olkin and Steen respectively, as Impa turned to look at her. “I hope that you have slept well, dear.” the ornaments hanging from her hat followed the motion of the rest of her head as Impa nodded towards her.

At once acutely aware of the fact that she was the only one to be addressed, Zelda made sure to keep her face a careful mask of politeness as she answered. “Yes,” she said, stifling a yawn, “it has been… it has been great to get a chance to sleep in a real bed for once. Thank you so much for your hospitality.”

“Don’t thank me.” Impa chuckled. “I am only doing what we have to do to be able to continue down this road that we are on.” without giving Zelda a moment to ask for her to elaborate on that statement, she let her gaze move from Zelda and over towards Ganondorf and Link. “I heard from my sister that the two of you have had a stellar recovery, even finding the strength to listen to her ramble about her inventions.”

“It really wasn’t an issue—Purah certainly has a way of, uh… making it all sound very _interesting_ when she tells you about all these things you barely understand.” there was no way anyone, much less Ganondorf himself, was able to miss the laugh in his voice, and Zelda was almost entirely certain that was part of the reason for why he did not waste much time before abandoning the losing battle that was convincing the rest of the room that he did not think that Purah’s overly technological rambles, while educational, where perhaps not the best way to be eased back into the world after recovering from a major injury. “But, yeah, no matter what, her invention is brilliant; I can’t even feel the wound anymore.” demonstrating his point, Ganondorf reached up to pat the point on his upper arm where Zelda could still see the bright red colour of blood if she focused, making Zelda clench her fists to keep herself from wincing. “Even if I have to admit that I have forgot what she called it.”

The answer in his voice was clear, but Impa still looked down at the table, her hat shielding her face from their gazes, giving them no chance of trying to guess what she was thinking by looking at her facial expressions before she raised her head. For all she had been looking like a grandmother, as Zelda saw the glimpse in her eyes, a steely glint having come to replace the slight chuckle from before, she could recognise Paya in her. But where Paya had talked with her for only a few minutes before all but running out of the room, refusing to say more than a handful of words to her all day, there was no doubt about the fact that Impa was willing to sit right there in her seat and meet their gazes for as long as she would have to.

“That, my dear,” Impa nodded towards Ganondorf, “is actually something I wished to talk with you about—or, rather, it is part of what I had summoned you here to discuss. As I am sure Zelda here has already informed you about, I was not exactly willing to tell you all that much about the reasons for you being here when you first arrived.”

All eyes in the room suddenly on her, Zelda had to fend off the urge to squirm in her seat. She had been right, but that fact did not do anything to relieve the feeling of unease as Ganondorf slowly looked from her and over towards Link, Link, for his part, immediately looking towards Zelda, first with surprise and then with a silent apology in his eyes, before turning back towards Impa.

“She did say that.” Ganondorf spoke slowly, sounding like he was carefully choosing each and every word. “She said that you had told her that it would have to wait for another day when she was actually well-rested.”

“And that was partly true. However, the fact that I chose to delay this conversation was also due to how I wanted to see how your reactions to being brought here and given little explanation for it would differ from each other. I know that Zelda lay awake until the early hours of morning—”

“How—?” Zelda said, hearing the gasp that interrupted the question even before Impa was able to do the same.

“Paya is good at pretending to be asleep. It is something she used to do when she was a child and wanted to stay up for a little longer to listen to me discus the legends with her parents, pretending to have fallen asleep on the couch. Did you really think that I was just going to send you directly to bed without at least bothering to try to keep track of how you were doing only two days after the three of you had been attacked by the Yiga Clan? I might not have deemed it necessary for you to receive the same kind of help as your friends, but I was not going to leave you alone up there. However, speaking of your friends,” Impa turned to face Ganondorf and Link, acting like she had not just punctured the impression Zelda had got of her and the village itself, “I take it that you have already tried to get Purah to tell you more about this village and our reasons for having brought you here, correct?”

“No,” Link said, his voice trembling a bit, clearly caught between feeling like he had made a mistake and committing to being honest, “no, we were—we just—she only told us about her machines.”

“There is no need to apologise for it. It was what I had expected from all of you. After all, the legends, though not exactly clear and precise by modern standards, contained description of the chosen ones.”

Silence fell, the words echoing in Zelda’s mind, spoken both by Impa and by the leader of the Yiga Clan as they had ordered their deaths.

The chosen ones.

The chosen ones and the Master Sword.

It seemed like something out of the myths and legends they had been told in school, something that made for a good story and a way of teaching children how to behave, but not something she would ever have believed could be true, and yet, Zelda would have been a fool to have forgot about Purah’s words. As unlikely as it seemed, if she had already been able to rule out every other explanation, was the last explanation still left with just the slightest possibility of being true not the one she would have to believe in?

Link was the first of them to break through the silence. Clearing his throat, with an air of someone who tried their very best to keep their voice calm, he gestured towards Impa, almost placing his elbow on his abandoned plate. “Are you saying that…?” he made an odd gesture, and, at last, Zelda recognised it for what it was, the ingrained habit of someone who had reached for a sword hanging by their hip for ages, someone for whom that was second nature, the way Link raised his eyebrows as he followed his own hand with his eyes for half a second before tearing it away from his side to lay it on the table, fist clenched, ruling out the option of it having been a conscious decision.

Following the little incident in silence, Impa bowed her head. “I know that Zelda has already noticed this, but let me ask the two of you the same question nonetheless. Have you thought about the fact that, for such a small village, there are a lot of people living here, a lot of people in one place despite how almost every last person in the world have succumbed to the disease?”

Their reactions let them know immediately that the answer was no, Ganondorf merely confirming it a moment later as he looked down at his slice of bread. “No,” he mumbled, “no, I hadn’t really thought about it. I assume that the mountains around the village gave it a degree of isolation, allowing it to escape the disease?”

“Not at all. Before the disease hit and spread chaos throughout the world, no one had lived in this village for centuries.”

“But then how…?” this time, it was Link who spoke up, the gesture he made seemingly directed towards everything and nothing in particular, the smoke they could see rise up above the houses out of the window and the fact that the sound of children yelling was carried through the air and into the room as they spoke all contained in the motion.

“Much like how you left your homes in response to the death around you, we also left our respective homes behind. You are from the Akkala Highlands, are you not, Link?” only barely giving Link enough time to nod, his expression letting them know that he would never have been able to produce a sound in response to that particular question, Impa continued. “I lived there as well, or at least I did until the disaster struck and I realised that I had another purpose. After that, I made sure to spread the word about this village here, travelling through Hyrule to find the family I had left. Because,” Impa fixed them all with a look that felt like it would have been able to cut through steel, “even though those of us who had a part to play in what came next were able to survive, that was not enough to save the ones around us who did not have that destiny.”

Looking first at Ganondorf and then at Link, Zelda saw her own question reflected in their eyes, Ganondorf nodding to her, the movement barely noticeable. That was the second time the idea of someone having a part to play had been brought up, and as much as Zelda wanted to brush it aside, she could not ignore it for any longer, not when she felt how the question bubbled up from deep within her to finally escape her mouth as the question they all wanted to ask.

“What do you mean that you have a part to play? And… and what does it mean for us? It involves us, does it not? This thing you are talking about, the Master Sword and the Yiga Clan—it is all connected in some way, is it not?”

Impa remained silent for another second before a smile formed on her face as she nodded at Zelda. “You are correct, not that I had expected any less from you. Tell me, how much do you know about the legends of the Golden Goddesses and the Triforce?”

“Well…” meeting only a panicked stare from Link and a frown from Ganondorf, Zelda knew that she would be the one to figure out just how to handle the sudden change of subject, “I mean, we learnt about it in school back when I was younger. So I know quite a bit I would say, especially with how my… well, with how my father insisted that it was important to know about those legends to understand how they influenced our culture, just as well as—” taking a deep breath, Zelda managed to interrupt herself in time before the truth, that she had fled to the library far more times than she wanted to admit, finding solace among the books and especially near the books on the old legends, would have echoed in the room around her.

“Good.” Impa rose from the table, beginning to pace back and forth through the room, the ornaments hanging from her hat moving along with her. “I take it that you have also noticed the cyclical nature of the legends then?”

Zelda was about to open her mouth when Link beat her to it. Gesturing towards Impa with his fork, he spoke quickly, his voice dropping a bit, taking on an urgent tone. “Yeah, it was always something about how Ganondorf or some form of him would rise up, only to then be met by the princess and the chosen hero, the three of them ending up in a battle that would always end with Ganondorf either killed or sealed away, peace returning to the land for a while until the process would begin anew once again. Really, in a way, I have to admit that it must have felt a bit pointless for the hero and the princess. I mean, if you know that your foe is just going to return later on to cause trouble for your descendants, how long would you be able to maintain hope before you would just give up and not even bother to fight him at all?”

“It wasn’t like they had much of a choice exactly.” placing his arm on the table, Ganondorf joined the conversation. “They were attacked and the people around them were suffering. I don’t see how they could have done anything but try their very best to try to defend their loved ones.”

“I am not saying that I don’t understand them at all; I am just saying that if I had been in their place, I am not sure I would have been able to maintain hope for so long. I know that they did what was right, or at least they did according to the legends, I am just saying that I, personally, would have found it quite difficult to continue to fight if I knew that it was all just part of some cycle that would return later on,” Link argued.

Seeing how Ganondorf was about to argue his point again, Zelda hurried to cut in before he got the chance. Trying her best to ignore the argument next to her, she focused all her attention on Impa, on the way she was looking over at her, the intensity in her gaze making it difficult for Zelda to maintain eye contact, Zelda refusing to give up regardless of that as she spoke up. “We are missing the point, aren’t we? The reason the princess and the hero, Zelda and Link—Ganondorf as well for that matter—were able to continue on for so long was that they did not know about what would follow after their own lifetimes. They honestly had no idea about the cycle that governed their existence. Instead, they thought that they were simply going through their life, something they had been given to handle. That way, they would never have to handle the fact that they might be fighting in vain, that, centuries after their deaths, all of their hard work would be rendered meaningless in a matter of moments.”

Next to her, Zelda heard Link ask what she was talking about, but as she looked over at Impa, the old lady seeming less and less like someone’s grandmother and instead looking almost like an entirely different person, the image of a tall woman with a long plait appearing in front of her like the afterimage that followed looking up towards the sun, all of them there at once while still not blocking out the fact that Impa was smiling at her.

“You are correct, dear.” Impa said the words with so much warmth in her voice that had it not been for the breeze that filled the room with its chilling effect, Zelda might have cried. “You are correct about all of it, just as I know that you are correct about what you are thinking now.”

That was the worst part. Zelda knew that already. She knew that there was only one explanation that would be able to make sense of all they had gone through, the deaths, the fact that she had met both Ganondorf and Link, meeting two other people when her chance of stumbling across them should have been minimal, their journey through Hyrule, the Yiga Clan, the Master Sword, and now this, Kakariko Village and Impa trying to get them to talk about the legends.

“It is real, isn’t it?” Zelda whispered the question despite already knowing the answer. “The Golden Goddesses, the Triforce they entrusted Hylia with, the cycles, the princess, the hero, and—” the room around her felt like ice as Zelda finished the sentence, “and Ganondorf. All of it, it has really happened.”

In the silence that followed, Zelda was sure that she could hear the heartbeats of everyone around her. It came to an end less than a second later, the sudden quiet instead replaced with questions asked all at once, Ganondorf and Link both leaning in over the table.

“Wait,” Link said, “wait, stop. They are real? All of it? Even…” he hesitated, but the silence told them everything they could have wanted to know as his gaze flickered towards the door, “the Master Sword as well? The sword I took from the Yiga Clan, that was the real Master Sword from the legends?”

“You did not take anything. That sword belonged to you and not the Yiga Clan. You are, after all, the hero chosen by the goddesses, just as your friend,” Impa pointed towards Zelda, “carries part of Hylia’s magic inside of her.”

In another world, Zelda might have expected to see Link’s jaw drop, for him to jump up and protest the idea. Now, however, for as much as they should have questioned both Impa’s sanity as well as their own for even entertaining the idea, deep down, below the layer of how everything she knew about the world told her that that could not be true, that they could not be part of some legend or cycle from the myths, it felt right. It was the only way Zelda knew how to put it, the idea that all of it may be real coming to form the last piece of her worldview, effortlessly fitting in between years of education and trying her best to analyse the world through the lens of what she knew to be true.

“And what about me?” Ganondorf spoke slowly, his voice calm as always, but it was not enough to hide the line of his shoulders as he tensed, how his hand clenched as the edge of his voice grew strained despite his clear attempts at maintaining careful control over his behaviour. “What does that mean for me? If Link is the hero who saves the world and Zelda is the princess, then that would mean that I—”

“You are indeed the reincarnation of the Ganondorf you know from the stories. But don’t despair over that just yet—”

“Don’t despair?” Ganondorf’s voice rose to a disbelieving laugh, bitterness dripping from every word. “Don’t despair. Don’t despair over what? The fact that I have apparently always been supposed to kill people? That, if I remember those legends correctly, I am already behind on points when it comes to that? Twenty-one and I am already bad at killing people, wow, I really didn’t know that that was something I needed to have prepared for. And here I went my entire life trying my best to learn as much as I could, spending hours in class taking notes about the principles of construction, trying my best to figure out how to avoid weak points in my designs so that anything I might one day design would be as safe as humanly possible, when, really, I should have done the exact opposite!” he breathed in heavily, Zelda seeing how his eyes had become shiny with tears halfway through his rant.

“You are underestimating your own importance and your own ability to control your life.” Impa spoke slowly and clearly, acting as if she did not notice how Ganondorf huffed at her words. “You are the reincarnation of Ganondorf—not the same person. The two of you might have been given the same destiny, but those can be changed and altered if the person who has been given them only possesses the strength to face that fact.”

“Oh, so now I have to face the fact that the universe is apparently telling me that I will have to kill people around me, that I will have to become their enemy!” Ganondorf spat the words, not looking at either Zelda or Link as he gestured towards them. “And for what reasons? Because it was just that way it was always meant to be? Why do those cycles even exist in the first place? Why did it have to be me? Why—” he interrupted himself, shaking his head with an expression that told them that he meant the action more for himself than for them. “No. You know what, I say no. I am not going to stand here and listen to you as you tell me that I am not in control of my own life, that my destiny is to—is to become some monster that children will then ask their parents to protect them from and check under the bed for. Screw all of that!” for a moment, it looked almost like Ganondorf was going to fling his plate onto the floor, but the last moment before he could have done that, Zelda seeing the way the muscles in his arms tensed, he leapt to his feet. Sending one last, caustic stare in the direction of where Impa had bowed her head in response to his words, the effect diminished by the tears already rolling down his cheeks, Ganondorf spun around and crossed the distance between the table and the doors in two steps, throwing them open to step out into the sunlight outside.

The doors fell shut, the loud thud echoing through the room. Almost like a spell had been broken, Zelda realised what had happened. Still seeing the shine of tears in Ganondorf’s eyes as she blinked, she turned to look towards where the doors kept her from being able to tell where he was going.

It was not until she felt someone reach out to grab onto her wrist that Zelda registered that she had gone to stand up, already halfway about to follow Ganondorf’s example and flee the house to follow him outside. Glancing down, however, she found herself looking at Impa, the old woman shaking her head at her.

“Don’t go after him. I promise you that he will be able to get through it. He is strong like that. He always has been.”

From the way she added that last sentence, there was no need to ask her if she was referring to the person who had just left the house or some past incarnation of him. But even though Zelda did not have to ask to know that the person who had just walked out of the door meant very little to Impa when compared to the person she thought he was, being confronted with that knowledge was another thing entirely.

She could not stay there for another moment. Hearing how Link mumbled something to her, no doubt telling her to please sit still for a moment or perhaps attempting to reach out towards her, Zelda stood up as well.

“We should go after him.” when she did not receive any response, Zelda repeated herself. “We should go out and tell him that he is not the same person as the one he has read about in the myths. You—you don’t understand it, but he is—”

“I understand what it means to find out that you have been given a destiny that feels too heavy for you to carry.” Impa spoke calmly, but there was still an edge of steel to her voice that made Zelda sink down into her seat again. “Listen, I understand that I have not told you enough for you to have been able to guess this on your own, but just as you are now sitting here, doubting my words, I too had to come to terms with the fact that I did not only exist as the Impa of my time, that I had lived before and had now been given the task of looking out for you, waiting for you to arrive, and trying to help you on your journey.” she could have looked at all of them, Link sitting right there with them, but Impa looked only at Zelda, staring at her with an intensity that felt like it would have been able to burn through anything. “Just like you and everyone else have, I too lost everyone around me back when the disease struck, but I remembered what had happened; I awoke and found meaning in preparing for you arrival. And just like I was able to come to terms with my fate, Ganondorf will soon enough realise that his destiny is something he will have to accept.”

Impa said it like it was something inevitable, like it was a matter of time before Ganondorf would come back inside. If Zelda had not still been able to recall how he had had to blink to keep back the tears, the memory flashing in front of her eyes as she met Impa’s gaze, she might have been furious about the fact that Impa spoke like she knew him better than the rest of them. They, she and Link, they had been the ones who had spent the last weeks with him, the ones who had talked with him about everything and nothing when they had found the energy to at least make an attempt at distracting themselves from what had happened and the ones who had walked in silence when they had not.

“If I may,” Link said, making both Impa and Zelda direct their attention towards him, “I have to agree with Zelda. He… Ganondorf, he is not going to just accept what you have told him. Besides, what would it even mean for us? In the legends, they always fought over Hyrule and a way to access to the Triforce, and now—well, with everything else you have told us, I suppose that the Triforce is real as well, but Hyrule is in ruins. I doubt that it can even be called a country anymore, and if it can, it is at least is not the same as the country from the legends.” with a light shrug that did not at all come close to hiding how he turned to try to catch a glimpse of the world outside through the windows, Link continued. “So I guess that the disease put a pretty effective end to the cycle in the end.”

Zelda realised the truth from one moment to another, the horror that accompanied the realisation making her gasp for breath, suddenly overcome by the sensation of all oxygen having left her body. “No.” rubbing her hands against her eyes, Zelda felt like a monster as they came away dry, revealing how she did not have any tears left for something as horrible as what she knew was to come, the fact that she would have to be the one to tell Link about his mistake dawning on her. Already, he had turned to look over at her, a slight crease forming between his brows as he tilted his head to the side, but Zelda could not bring herself to look at him, instead staring at Impa as she continued. “No, Impa, please, you can’t mean that! It can’t be that—that—” a sob swallowed the end of the sentence, leaving Zelda unable to do anything but search for even the slightest hint of her having misunderstood the expression on Impa’s face, feeling the despair grow in her stomach as all she saw was a look of pity and a silent apology that would never have helped against the feeling of being unable to breathe.

“What?” looking back and forth between the two, the line between Link’s brows grew deeper as he frowned. “What are you talking about?”

There was no use in waiting for Impa to tell him, not when there was nothing to say or do that would ever have softened the impact of the truth that Zelda had only just realised.

Unable to fight the feeling of being unable to breathe, barely keeping herself from hyperventilating in an attempt at combatting it, Zelda looked over at him, having to begin multiple times before she was able to force out the words. “Link, you know what has happened. The hero and the princess—they always fought Ganondorf. It always happened like that, over and over and over again. There was no way out of the cycle, and they had no way of outright bringing an end to it. But then why have we not seen anything like that happen for so long that the histories became myths and legends? How can it be that something that is inevitable and brings along the deaths of thousands of innocents could be avoided for years?” Zelda could see the dawning realisation in Link’s eyes, see how the light disappeared from them as he too saw the connection between everything that had happened and the one way they had of explaining it, but she was not sure she would be able to continue if she allowed herself to pause for even a moment, and so, she continued. “I can see only one explanation: that they did not avoid the next cycle or bring an end to it entirely. Instead, they simply delayed it. That is what happened; the cycle was brought to a halt and now, we are paying the price for that.”

“I…” as she looked at him, Link seemed to be at an utter loss for words, repeating something to himself over and over again before falling silent.

Zelda could not blame him. For her theory to be true, it would mean that they, or the parts of the legends they carried inside them, were, in a way, to blame for everything that had happened. Riju, Aryll, Zelda’s father, every last person in the world who had succumbed to the disease, it was all their fault. Even the little pieces of hope that she might be wrong, the fact that Zelda had no way of explaining how a cycle of violence between three people chosen by the goddesses could result in the deaths of millions of people, that Impa had yet to outright confirm the theory, felt like feeble excuses, a way for her to deny the fact that she might very well have been the reason for the silence that had come to fill the entire world.

“It is not your fault.” maybe Impa had meant it as a comfort, but as Zelda looked up from the table to see the old woman move towards her, it took everything in her not to flinch away as she reached out to take her hand in hers. “What has happened is not your fault, nor does the blame lie with any of your past lives. You see, you are right about most of your theory. All the signs of this being part of another cycle are here, the Master Sword your friend brought with him to the village, the fact that so many of us awakened, and finally the fact that the three of you were brought together by a single incident—all of it points towards the disease being yet another incarnation of the cycle. However, don’t believe that your destinies were given to you by your ancestors. Most likely, they had no idea about the fact that their lives had a reach that extended beyond their own lifetimes in a way they could not imagine, so to believe that they were willingly delaying something they knew to be inevitable would be a mistake. They did not know.”

She said it like it was meant to be a comforting idea, like the fact that their ancestors might not have meant to let the cycle gain momentum until it finally manifested as millions upon millions of corpses would do anything to take away the feelings of guilt that grew to fill every last cell of her body. Was that what the voices she had heard meant? Were they the voices of her past lives, whispering to her? Closing her eyes, Zelda tried to will them to appear in her mind, tried to force whatever princess had been responsible for the choice not to let the cycle repeat during her lifetime, to instead let it build and gain momentum until it was able to destroy the world around her, to appear, but nothing came, and Zelda opened her eyes to see that the world was still the same despite her attempts at changing what had happened. There was still the horrible and undeniable truth that, deep down, she could feel that Impa was right, that she, Link, and Ganondorf were all connected to the cycle.

“Nayru…” her voice sounded nothing like it had ever done before, and, try as she might, Zelda could not figure out if it was a fact that owed its existence to how she had just been forced to realise that she could not close her eyes to how she could feel the pull of the past in her mind, or if it had the same origin as the feeling of vertigo that made the room tilt around her as she tried her best not to fall. “I.. I can’t—I can’t—not right now, please.”

Zelda was only faintly aware of the fact that Impa called out after her as she stood up to leave, but when she did not move to stop her, Zelda continued forwards. Not even the feeling of the wood of the door beneath her fingers felt tangible enough to ground her as Zelda sprinted out of the house, halfway falling, halfway running down the steps leading up to the house until she found herself standing in an open area, a fire in the distance sending a thin line of smoke up towards the sky.

Pivoting around herself, continuing the motion over and over again, bile rising in her throat as she forced herself not to stop, Zelda saw the other signs of civilisation around her, the way the sound of children screaming with joy rose up above the rooftops, how cuccos were walking along the roads, searching for scraps of food, how the line of smoke in front of her was mirrored by the smoke she could see rise above the houses only a few metres away from her. It was everywhere, something she could not escape from, a constant reminder that had it not been for her, had it not been for the cycle and all the things she did not understand and did not wish to understand, none of the people around her would ever have had to come to Kakariko Village. If it had not been for the cycle, then they would all have been at home with their families, just as Zelda would currently be sitting in a classroom, dreading the moment where the bell would ring to signify that they could leave to go to the canteen. What would she be doing after that? Zelda supposed that she would head home, kicking her shoes off in the hall as she tried to tell her father about the latest physics class only to be meet with disinterest and perhaps a reminder that she had to focus on politics. Politics. She could have laughed. Was that really the best method of leading the violence into a time where the Hyrulean monarchy no longer existed the goddesses or the cycle itself or whoever had been the ones to design a system of never-ending death and violence in the first place had been able to think of to? A politician?

She might have lost her mind in that moment, but then again, Zelda supposed that it could have happened a long time ago already. What other way was there to explain what had happened, that she had heard voices and was now willing to believe that the deaths of everyone around her might be the effect of some mythical cycle, how she was holding on to every last thing that would allow her to make sense of what had happened?

That way of thinking was able to get her through almost a minute of trying to convince herself that she could go on in a state of blissful ignorance to the fact that she was part of the reason for everything that had happened, part of the reason for why the world had stopped mattering a month ago. But a minute was not much when the alternative was to know that she could never forget about the conversation.

Kicking at the ground, her anger sending little stones flying up into the air, a nearby cucco looking indignantly at her before walking away, Zelda could hear Impa’s attempt at convincing her that the princess and hero of old, the ones who should have experienced a cycle like the one she was trapped in, both to prevent disaster and to allow it to become history rather than legend, had not meant to allow the cycle to return echo in her ears. She pushed it away. There had been no one to blame for the disease at first. As much as she hated herself for being connected to the people responsible for it all, by picturing a faceless princess who had tried so hard to lead her kingdom away from disaster that she had burdened the future generations with that debt, at least it gave her someone to hold responsible.

The anger did not leave her. Instead it merely cooled down a little, still waiting right below the surface of pretence Zelda constructed around her as she forced herself to calm down, taking a calming breath, allowing her to begin her search for Ganondorf. He would understand, Zelda was sure of that. A person who had just been told that it would be his destiny to bring pain and destruction to the people around him—Zelda had to believe that he would understand her and believe her when she would tell him about the cycle and its connection to the disease.

Kakariko Village was nothing like Hyrule Castle Town, both when it came to population and size, but it still took her a while to notice the road that branched off to the side, leading her between two tall hills rising up next to her and over to where the mountains opened up to reveal how Hyrule lay in front of them.

That was where she found Ganondorf.

With how he was sitting next to a pile of rocks, with his back turned towards her, Zelda was not sure whether or not he had even noticed her presence, if she should cough or otherwise try to signal to him that she was there.

Before she got the chance to do any of that, however, Ganondorf had let out a harsh laugh. “Are you here? Didn’t you hear what she told you—I am meant to fight against you and Link, meant to do everything in my power to kill you and everyone else.”

That made the decision for her. Moving towards Ganondorf, Zelda made sure to let her steps be a bit heavier, taking away any risk that she might unwarily surprise him as she sat down next to him. The rocks in front of her were an odd combination, some of them marked by age, moss having almost pulled them completely into the ground, and others looking like they had been added to the pile mere moments ago.

They sat there in silence for a while, Zelda stealing glances at Ganondorf twice before she was able to find the courage to say anything, much less the words for it. But at last, she was able to look at him, halfway reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder before her courage failed her, leaving Zelda to let her hand fall back against her side as she spoke. “I know that you would never do that. That is not who you are.”

“And I am sure that plenty of the Ganondorfs in the past thought the same thing as well.” Ganondorf pulled a leg up to his chest, resting his chin on his knee as he continued to look down at a spot on the ground directly in front of him. “You know, I wanted argue against what she told me, to say that I am not some monster from the legends reborn. More than anything I wish that I had been able to tell her that she was wrong, that I am just me and no one else, but…” Ganondorf shook his head, “I have been out here for ages already, and I am not even close to being able to convince myself that that is the case. There is just this… voice inside of me that keeps on telling me that it is true. I guess that it has been there for a while as well—I wonder when it is going to begin to order me to try to kill you and Link, when it will tell me that I have to follow my destiny to become a monster that children fear. Though, I guess that that is if there will even be any part of this world left after that happens. It would not surprise me if fate would also have decided that I would be the one to bring an end to the entire world.”

There was nothing for her to say in response to that, a fact that left Zelda standing there, searching for something to tell him as Ganondorf’s shoulders began to shake lightly.

No matter what, standing there and watching him cry without uttering a word was not an option, and so, although she was not sure what to do or if there was any action for her to take that would not only serve to make everything worse, Zelda moved to sit down next to him. Ganondorf did not react, neither turning to acknowledge her presence nor flinching away from her, a fact that made Zelda find the courage to slowly put her arm around his shoulders, movements slow and soft to give him a chance to push her away. When he did not do that, Zelda took it as what little she could receive that carried the characteristics of a good sign.

For a moment, they both sat there in front of the stones. She could not know what Ganondorf was thinking, only that he too was keeping his eyes carefully trained on the stones, but she did know what thoughts went through her mind as she spotted the faded letters that had been carved into the rock directly in front of her, the lines of them so worn by age that Zelda could only barely make out a handful of them. Still, it was enough for her to realise that it was a name, that the pile of stones were really gravestones.

“You should not have come to find me.” Ganondorf’s voice was kept low, but Zelda still heard every word, every last tremble he tried to hide. “You—we all heard what Impa said; I really am the monster from the legends.”

“No, you are not,” Zelda began, but Ganondorf held up his hand, signalling for her to stop.

“Yes, I am. I… there is this voice in my mind, if that is even how I should it. It—I only began to notice it after everything happened, so I just assumed that it was a sign that the death of everyone around me was affecting my mental health more than I wanted to believe, but now…” Ganondorf grimaced, every line on his face full of a combination of regret and fear, “I know that it is really _him_. He is there, deep down. I try my best not to listen to him, and if I am honest, I don’t think I would be able to fully understand what he was saying if I tried, but… but there is still the risk that he might one day raise his voice. And then what?” he finally looked over at her. The relief of the acknowledgement was short-lived as he seemed to look directly through her and out over Hyrule below them. “He is probably going to recognise you as the princess—Link as well. How can you sit there when that could happen at any moment?”

“Because you are my friend. I know that you would never try to harm me.”

“Friend.” there was an edge of something to his voice that Zelda could not quite identify. It sounded almost like he might have laughed if it had not been for the horror of everything around them making that impossible. “You know, Zelda, I tried to convince myself of that as well. And do you know what I realised?”

With the feeling that she was about to make a mistake by implicitly asking him to clarify sitting in her throat, making it difficult for her to get enough air into her lungs, Zelda shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

“I just thought about the legends for a bit, about how Ganondorf was usually portrayed as being the king of the Gerudo or in some other way possessing a high rank in a kingdom that neighboured Hyrule where Zelda would always be the future monarch, and I could not help but think that the chance of them never having met before their destinies collided in any of their lifetimes seemed unlikely.” he did not exactly push away Zelda’s arm, but as Ganondorf pulled his other knee up to his chest, curling in on himself, that was nevertheless the effect he achieved, Zelda allowing her hand to hit the soft dirt beneath them, unable to do anything other than to sit there as Ganondorf continued. “You try to convince me that everything will be fine because we are friends, and trust me, I would love to be able to believe that, but don’t you see it? They—we—might have been friends in the past as well, and still, that was not enough to keep them from following their destinies. If this is a cycle that is bound to continue until the end of the world, then I don’t see any way of stopping it, so perhaps it would be better if I left. That way, at least you and Link might have more of a chance to prepare for the day where I become… him.”

Biting her lip, it took everything tough inside of Zelda to keep herself from losing her strength to the fact that the cycle and the fact that it could not be stopped was the exact reason they were now sitting here, having lost everything. She had gone to find Ganondorf, and as much as she wanted to share what Impa had told them with him to search for some kind of comfort and understanding, a single glimpse at the way Ganondorf sat with his arms wrapped around his legs was more than enough to let her know that he would not be able to bear any more talk of destiny and the fact that they, or rather some past incarnation of them, were responsible for everything that had happened.

He was holding back sobs. Zelda could feel it as she once again put her arms around him, this time making sure to hold onto him as the silent shaking became all-out sobs, Ganondorf either lacking the energy or the will to try to hide his tears, instead leaning towards her a little, moving further into the awkward embrace of Zelda trying her best to pretend that her presence would in any way be able to help take away just a little of the grief.

Zelda had no idea how long they sat there for, nor did it matter. All that held any importance right then was the fact that Ganondorf was at least not trying to push her away or escape her grasp, instead letting her reach out to pat his shoulder for a few minutes until she was able to speak again. “Ganondorf… I know that it won’t help you—to be honest, I don’t even know whether or not you will believe it, but, for what it is worth, I cannot imagine a world where you could ever become anything like the person from the legends. You are nothing like him. He desired power and was willing to sacrifice anything to get a chance to take the ultimate power for himself; he was selfish, and willing to betray anyone who thought that they could trust him. You are none of those things. I doubt you have even a shred of that kind of person inside you at all. You are the reason why I am still alive. You—I know that you must have realised it by now, but I was ready to give up when I first met you. But I didn’t. I didn’t because, suddenly, I was not alone anymore. I had you and you gave me something to believe in, a reason to keep going.”

“And now that is gone.” Ganondorf’s voice was barely audible, the sobs interrupting him. “They are gone. There is no reason to go to Labrynna. I know that they are gone; I could feel it from the beginning. It was foolish to try to make myself believe otherwise, that the disease would have been stopped by the sea.” he looked at her with red eyes. “It was convenient for me to believe that they might still be out there, that I might not have lost everything yet, especially after I met you and realised that the lie made you happy, so I refrained from telling you that, deep down, I could feel that they had died. I am sorry, Zelda. I am so sorry.”

A day ago the confession would have left her empty, completely devoid of any feeling at all. Now, however, Zelda doubted that there was anything Ganondorf could have told her that would have taken away the guilt and dread that curled in the pit of her stomach at both the thought of everything that some part of her soul had been responsible for as well as the fact that she would have to share it with him sooner or later. In a way, when compared to that, the fact that Ganondorf had known that they had been chasing a hopeless dream was almost a relief, leaving Zelda able to let go of the mask of pretending that she had not had her doubts about whether or not they would have found Koume and Kotake alive if they had been able to cross Faron Sea.

“Don’t apologise.” tightening her hold on his shoulder, Zelda leant in closer towards him. “I did not go with you just because I wanted to believe that there might still be people alive across the sea, I did it because I would have been willing to follow you anywhere you might have gone in the world.”

“You would?” he tried to hide it, Zelda could hear that, but it was still not enough to keep her from noting how a hopeful lilt to his voice shifted the pitch of the words upwards.

“Of course I would,” Zelda said, “we all would.”

Ganondorf huffed, the sound lacking the emotions it should have been associated with, sounding hopeless rather than offensive. “That is what he thinks, but sooner or later, he is bound to remember his past as the legendary hero, just as I will have to come face to face with the fact that the bullies were apparently right to tell me that I would be just as bad as Ganondorf since we shared the same name and you will realise that you share more than just your name with the princesses of the past and come to see me the same way as everyone else does when they learn about the legends.”

“Or maybe he and I will look at you and see the person who was willing to jump between Link and the Yiga Clan, sustaining major injuries as he refused to let them touch Link.” when Ganondorf did not answer her, neither giving any signs that he had heard her and decided that it was an idea undeserving of his recognition nor that he was thinking about the possibility of it being true, Zelda moved, shifting so that, rather than sitting next to him, talking to the side of his face as Ganondorf stared straight ahead, she was closer to the gravestones, sitting so that he would have to actively look away to keep himself from looking at her as she leant in, pulling him in for a proper embrace.

Reaching around him, aware of the odd smell of Kakariko Village that clung to his borrowed clothes, Zelda felt the sobs that made his body shake, felt how they slowly grew less and less intense as Ganondorf finally returned the embrace. Later, she would not be able to recall the exact moment where they rose from the ground, but it must have happened, for the next thing Zelda knew, they were standing there, looking out over Hyrule that lay as an expanse of green fields below the hill they were standing on, the castle that stood on the cliffs rising up above Hyrule Castle Town serving as a reminder of the past and how it had been the home of both the Hyrulean monarchy as well as the Hyrulean parliament, Ganondorf having an arm slung over her shoulders and Zelda barely managing to reach his waist to return the gesture.

They were silent, but unlike how it had been in the past, it was an easy silence, one Zelda did not feel any need to bring an end to as she stood there.

However, it would appear that Ganondorf did, for it was the sound of him clearing his throat that made Zelda tear her gaze away from the sight of Hyrule below them to instead direct her full attention towards him.

There was still pain in his eyes as he smiled down at her, the expression created by the pull of muscles around his mouth more than any kind of real joy or happiness, but it was more than what she had dared to hope for only a few minutes ago, especially as Ganondorf did not let go of her, did not begin to step away from her to put distance between them as he spoke. “I—thank you, Zelda. Truly. I… I should not have left, not the way I did at least.” he wiped away the tears rolling down his cheeks with his sleeve, but more continued to come forwards to take their spot moments later as he turned to look over at her.

She had made the decision not to tell him about everything that had followed him letting the door slam behind him just yet, but as she sat there, Zelda could see how the gradual realisation that there was more to it than what she had told him yet appeared, first as a faint line between his brows, but soon making its way into his eyes, what little relief there had been there disappearing soon after to make way for horror.

“Zelda.” Ganondorf pulled her closer towards him, wrapping both arms around her. It wasn’t until then that she felt how she was shaking with sobs. “What is wrong? I—you said yourself that we are still ourselves even if—”

“It is not that.” hearing him repeat her own words back at her, Ganondorf’s voice shaking as it did not manage to stop her tears, was unbearable, Zelda decided. “It is not that at all.”

“Then what is it?”

It felt like something broke down inside of her, what little bit of strength she had had left leaving her in a second, everything Impa had told them, the truth about the disease and the cycles coming along with it, filling the air between them. Trying her best to look at a point directly next to Ganondorf’s face as she spoke, Zelda could still tell how Ganondorf connected the dots before she got to the end from how he went still as their knowledge of the cycle of diseases and the cycle of their lives connected to form a larger whole,.

“I—no,” Ganondorf shook his head, the movement strangely jarring, making it seem like he had only just then remembered how to move his body, “no, that—no.” he continued to shake his head as he spoke, but Zelda could see how he knew better than to believe what he was saying from the way his gaze became dark as he stepped away from her.

The air around them was not cold by any means, but Zelda still found herself shivering, her attempt at remaining warm by wrapping her arms around herself only serving to push a sensation of having done that before to the front of her mind. How many times had that happened already? How many times had her decisions and opinions of the world around her been affected by her past lives? Was it an anomaly to be able to hear a voice in the back of her head? Zelda had always assumed that it was her own thoughts, her own conscience, but as she stood there, trying her best to keep herself from thinking about the legends, from remembering how she had felt drawn to the book on mythology and history like it had called out for her, she was not so sure anymore.

Clutching his head in his hands, Ganondorf finally looked back up at her. His eyes were dry. Zelda could not blame him for that. If she were to try to comprehend the fact that some part of her might unwittingly have played a part in the death of the world around her, she knew that she would not be able to continue on. There was no need for her to recall her psychology classes to know that her way of handling the thought was not healthy, but if it was a matter of choosing between ignoring the full extent of the truth and losing what little bit of hope they still had left that they might figure something out, then she would cling on to that hope like her life depended on it, something that was probably also the case as she caught herself looking towards Hyrule Castle.

What had it been like to live there? Had the princess who had allowed the cycle to move past them only to deliver a devastating blow to their world enjoyed living there? Had she walked through the corridors and admired the paintings and tapestries or had it felt like a prison to her?

“Zelda?” Ganondorf’s voice brought her back to the world around her. “I—what… what can we do? If the cycle has appeared now because we did not fulfil our roles in the past, then would that not mean…?”

She realised what he was trying to say a moment later, but it took her several seconds to regain the ability to speak, to do anything other than stare at him, halfway convinced that he was joking, that it was all just an extremely poor way of coping with what had happened. It became clear that it was not soon enough, but Zelda still had to try multiple times before she was able to utter even a single word. “We—we are not going to turn against one another. Never.” making a sweeping gesture, Zelda reached out to take his hands in hers. He did not react, but at least it meant that he did not outright try to pull his hands out of her grasp as she took a step closer towards him. “Do you hear what I am saying? If that is what this cycle is trying to get us to do, then we are not going to comply. It—it has already been here once, spreading chaos and destruction, don’t you think that that is enough, that that is all it is going to do?”

But already as she asked the question, Zelda knew that it was wishful thinking. The silent scream from the depth of her consciousness only served to further strengthen that fear, Zelda having to swallow thickly to keep herself from crying. She had cried enough already, now it was about how they had to put a stop to it, how they had to force the cycle to come to an end.

Sending her a glance that told her that he did not believe in her wishful thinking either, Ganondorf turned to look towards the horizon, the mountain range separating them from the Gerudo Desert rising up in the distance. “We should run away. You, me, and Link, we could leave all of this behind and try to find a place where fate and destiny and ancient cycles put in place by goddesses and demons cannot reach us.”

It was a tempting idea, not as much as a way of being able to escape from the consequences but rather as an escape from the fact that Zelda could not figure out a way she would ever be able to quieten the voice in her head. However, following Ganondorf’s line of sight, Zelda knew that it was impossible to achieve that just as much as she knew that Ganondorf did not actually mean what he was saying, that he was merely trying his best to find a way to flee from of the situation that had come to take away their lives.

“We can’t do that.” Ganondorf did not respond, so, taking a step towards him, Zelda repeated herself once again. “Ganondorf, you know that we cannot do that. I—the cycle, you and I both know that it will not work like this. If we want to stop this, we will have to stay with Impa. She has done this before and has more of her memories. If anyone is able to figure out a way to fully bring an end to the cycle, it is her. I… I think that she has done this before—or at least it feels like she has.”

“So you are telling me to trust her because you have a vague memory of having known her in the past where she was on your side, while also telling me that it does not mean anything at all that I am apparently the reincarnation of the king of all evil who has always opposed you and Link in your past lives?” Ganondorf’s voice broke, but he still continued. “You are really telling me that?”

“I am sorry—” Zelda began, but she did not get to finish the sentence.

“I don’t _want_ you to be sorry, Zelda! I want you to be angry at the goddesses or demons or _whoever_ it is that was responsible for creating this unending cycle in the first place! I want you to stop acting like you are somehow personally responsible for the disease, like—like—” Ganondorf stopped for a moment, gesticulating wildly, seemingly directing the motions towards the entire world, “like you should have been aware of all of this before you had any chance to learn about our past, like anyone would not have tried their very best to save the world around them if they had sat there with no chance of knowing that they were part of some grand cosmic joke and that their attempt at saving the world would only result in the deaths of everyone in the future. I just want you to, for once, acknowledge the fact that it isn’t your fault! You did the same thing with your father and I let it pass by unacknowledged, but I can’t just look on now when you are trying to do the same thing once again.”

“Those situations had nothing to do with one another,” Zelda argued, and as much as she tried to remain calm, she could hear how her voice grew shrill at the accusation, “my father is not like this cycle at all!”

“No, he is not, but your way of handling that issue was!” interrupting himself by taking a deep breath, Ganondorf held up his hands in what appeared to be meant as a placating gesture but felt more like a way to escape from the situation as he began to make his way past her, not even bothering to turn around to look back at her as he spoke. “I can’t—I can’t deal with this right now. I swear that I will not leave this place without you and Link, but I can’t go back to Impa just yet. Just… give me time.”

With the feeling of someone yelling at her from the depths of her own mind, Zelda doubted that time was something they had an abundance of, but since she also did not know what she could say or do to make the situation any better, she let Ganondorf walk away from her. It only took a handful of seconds for him to make his way around the corner.

Perhaps she should have been stronger, but Zelda was barely able to remain standing until he was out of sight, her knees buckling below her to let her fall to the ground. She stayed there for longer than she wanted to admit to, torn between the need to go back to Impa and ask her what they would have to do to keep the cycle from returning with the same devastating blow in the future and the fact that she could not imagine having to face anyone just yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, Zelda has received answers that only leave her with even more questions.


	14. Chapter 14

Zelda could not remember having gone back to Impa’s house, but somehow, she must have made her way back there, for when she opened her eyes the next time, it was to find herself lying in the spare bed in the room just beneath the roof, the sound of Paya’s breathing letting her know that she was really back there once again.

Unlike before, unlike when the disaster had first struck and she had been able to believe for even a second after waking up that she was back in the old world where things made sense and her biggest worry was whether or not her father would find any reason to criticise her for her grades and choice of classes, everything that had passed the day before was with her from the moment she woke up, making it feel almost like it was physically present in her body as she dug her elbows into the mattress, forcing herself up into a sitting position. With how she now knew to identify the presence in the back of her mind as the memories of past lives, Zelda should perhaps not have been surprised by that, and still, she found herself staring out into the darkness, both unable to lie back down and to continue. Heading downstairs, having to come face to face with Impa and the fact that she had undoubtedly proceeded to tell Link what had to be done to satisfy the cycle and the destinies that had brought them there, all of it felt like a weight that had been placed on her chest, Zelda struggling to breathe as it continued to press down.

“Zelda?”

The voice was low, and still, Zelda looked in the direction of it, only to find that Paya had moved over to stand next to her bed. With how she clutched something in front of her, looking down at it rather than at Zelda, it was clear that the hesitant noise had belonged to her.

With a smile she knew was strained, Zelda looked up at her. “Yes?”

“Well, it’s just that I thought that with how my grandmother did not seem to mind your friends having borrowed clothes from the people in the village, you might want to be able to change into something a little…”

It felt like her mind was refusing to cooperate, but even then, Zelda was able to recognise the bundle in Paya’s arms for what it was: clothes.

She had expected for it to be nothing but a polite facade, but as Zelda nodded, she was surprised to hear the honest gratefulness in her own voice. “Yes, I would like that very much. Thank you, Paya.”

In the darkness, Zelda was not able to tell whether Paya’s ears had turned red the same way they had done when she had first met her, but she heard how her voice shook slightly as she placed the clothing down on her bed. “It was nothing. I mean, with… well, everything, the least I could do was to try to find you something to wear.”

Zelda had expected for Paya to leave it at that, to head back downstairs, perhaps giving her one last instruction from Impa before she left, but when that did not happen, Paya instead pausing halfway through a step away from the bed, standing there for a second before she seemed to make a decision and move to sit down next to Zelda on the bed, all Zelda could do was to look at her and realise that she was waiting for her to say something.

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, trying her best to push back down the feeling that she was about to make a mistake, Zelda could only continue to send stolen glances in the direction of Paya as she tried to guess what she wanted to hear. There was little doubt about what Zelda would have wanted to be told if she had been in her place. To be assured that Kakariko Village and the sense of home she might have been able to create after having been brought there by her grandmother—that was essential, and still, as Zelda opened her mouth to try to find a lie that would fit what Paya needed to hear, she felt nothing but emptiness in her mind. There was nothing, Zelda realised, nothing at all for her to say, and so, she remained silent.

Maybe Paya was able to guess the reason for her silence. That, or perhaps the awkward silence around them was enough to make her talk despite the way she fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve. No matter what explanation would turn out to be correct, fact was that Paya took a deep breath before the bed creaked below her as she looked over at Zelda. “I just wanted for you to know that… that I had no idea about the cycle. I knew that you were the current incarnations of the Zeldas, Links, and Ganondorfs from the legends, but I had thought that you had come here because you are the only ones capable of putting a stop to the effects of the disease and bring back those we lost, not that the disease was directly caused by your past.”

“You heard about that?”

“Yes…” Paya’s answer came after a moment of silence, one that was just long enough for Zelda to be able to picture the blush rising to dust her ears with red. “I stood just around the corner, up on the landing. I know that I should not have done it and I swear that I did not tell anyone about what I heard, but I just had to know what it was that had made my grandmother look forwards to your arrival in a way that made it seem like you would be the saviours of the entire world.”

The easy thing to do would have been to stay silent, and for a moment, Zelda considered choosing that option, to inform Paya that she appreciated the gesture of bringing her clean clothes and that she would prefer some privacy while she changed, but it only lasted a moment before she knew that she owed her more than that.

Hearing how hollow her voice sounded, Zelda looked in the direction of Paya. Though she might not be able to see her as well as she would have been able to if it had not been for the darkness in the room, she could at least give Paya the chance to look into her eyes as she spoke. “I am sorry. I had no idea that we were the reason for the disease. I—Hylia, and you lost your entire village—everyone did, all because of some choice I or someone with part of my soul inside of them made in the past.” her head felt heavy as she pressed her fingers to her temples, pushing against it like it would help her make sense of what was happening, of the fact that she was still not sure what the idea of reincarnation entailed other than meaning that she was responsible for the deaths of millions.

Had it not been for how her entire body felt like it was made of lead, Zelda was sure that she would have jumped from surprise as she felt a hand against her shoulder. There was only one possible explanation for that, and still, Zelda had to lift her head just to make sure that it was really Paya who was the reason for that, that there was not someone else who had entered the room unnoticed to try to comfort her.

But no, it was indeed Paya who sat there, a twinkle in her eyes that Zelda did not know how to read as she patted her lightly on the shoulder, just as it was Paya who broke the silence between them again. “I am not blaming you for that Zelda. No one is—or, well,” Paya stopped herself, looking up as she began to ramble, “of course no one is going to even consider the question of whether or not to blame you for what has happened because, other than me, Impa, and perhaps Purah and then, of course the three, of you, I doubt that anyone knows about the cycle, but still, I know that no one is going to blame you for it. In fact, with how much time Impa spent preparing for your arrival, I am sure that there is still hope for everything.”

It made an almost frightening amount of sense, Zelda decided, so much that she could not quite determine if it could really be true or if it was merely the result of her wishing for it to be real. If she tried to forget about the fact that this was about her, that, if Paya was wrong and Impa really did resent her for what had happened, Zelda was to blame for that feeling, the way Impa had come out to greet them, organising for her to be able to sleep inside her home and making it so that both Ganondorf and Link were treated for their injuries, would be an indication that she was glad that they were there. And, Zelda thought, since she had been the one to inform them of the connection between themselves, the cycle, and the disease, she must have known about it already back then. There was no joy and no moment of clarity where she would be able to say without a shadow of a doubt that she was certain that Paya might be right, but it was enough to allow her to unclench her jaw, sending Paya a smile she doubted she could see in the darkness.

“Thank you. I… I don’t know what I was thinking—it is just that, well, with everything that has happened and how much I have tried to figure out what to think, I thought that maybe…” she could not bring herself to finish the sentence, instead letting it trail off.

Thankfully, Paya seemed to guess what she was thinking, for, tilting her head to the side, she looked over at her. “You were thinking that people were going to blame you for the fact that the cycle did not, uh, appear in the past?” when Zelda nodded, Paya let her hand fall from her shoulder, the bedsheets rustling slightly as she began to fidget again. “Look,” Paya finally said, “I get that this might sound weird to you since you have only just learnt about who you are, but I grew up with those legends. My grandmother, Impa, I mean, every time she would visit, she would tell me these tales about past princesses and heroes who would appear to save the day when everything seemed to be lost.” a slight smile grew at the corners of Paya’s lips. “She made it all sound so real, making it feel like you could close your eyes and then you would be there. I guess that I know the reason for that now.”

As much as she wanted to do more, to repay Paya’s kindness by at least being able to pretend to have any energy left after the day before, Zelda could only barely muster up a short shrug.

However, Paya did not seem to notice her lack of energy. That, or maybe she was simply willing to forgive her for it, for she continued untiringly. “Anyway, when she arrived to tell me about this village, about how there might be someone out there who would be able to help everyone, not just us but the entire world, I did not want to believe her at first. I mean, after everything that had happened and with how old she was, I assumed that she was—well, that it was a matter of her mind not being able to handle what had happened.” Paya grimaced, and Zelda noticed the worried glance she threw in the direction of the staircase, clearly stopping to make sure that Impa was not about to come up the stairs. Trying her best to suppress a low chuckle that should not have come bubbling up from her stomach, Zelda could almost see how she would stand there as Paya continued. “But she continued to talk about it, continued to tell all the other people she would track down about it, and it did not take long for it to no longer feel like a dream that could never be. Instead, the entire village began to look forwards to the day where you would appear, the day where we might discover that not everything had been lost yet. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you? No one here is going to blame you, not when we have every reason to think that Impa believes in you and in finding a way to use the cycle to restore the world.”

Paya looked at her, the hope clear in her eyes.

Perhaps it was really so clear to her, maybe it was what it felt like to someone who had not listened to the voice in her own mind that she could not quite hear, who had not tried their best to console a friend who was convinced that they were going to become enemies in the end, being left with the feeling that they had still not done nearly enough to help either of them. Perhaps it was really so simple for Paya, to see the pattern in the legends, how the arrival of the hero was a sign that they were going to be saved, and then decide that, since the supposed hero had indeed arrived, that meant that they would be able to bring back everything that had been lost. It was the way the legends would have told the story, Zelda knew that, but no matter how she tried to imagine a future that would allow it to be true, to believe that there was any chance of using the destructive forces of the cycle to their advantage, fact was that people were dead. People, both those they personally cared about and those they had never even met, had died, and no amounts of believing in the legends would be enough to change that.

“You make it sound so easy,” Zelda said, hearing the defeat in her voice, “you sound like it is just a matter of us sitting down for a moment, and then we will know what to do about this. But don’t you see? I have no clue about what any of this means for me. I know that Impa is right about us having been reincarnated over and over again since I can feel that inside. But I have no clue about what exactly that means or how the cycle having manifested as the disease is going to affect the future. I don’t know what to do and I doubt that I ever will—I am not the hero you seem to have believed was going to come here and figure out what we will have to do. I am sorry that I am not, and if I could do anything to become that person, I would do so in a heartbeat, but I just… I don’t know!”

Zelda regretted her words the moment they had left her mouth.

Before she had got the chance to do as much as simply opening her mouth to try to take some of them back, Paya had already risen from her bed, and though she did not hurry away from her the same way she had done when Zelda had first arrived, Zelda could feel how the barrier between them had appeared once again, Paya unable to hide how her shoulders rose up.

“Paya—” Zelda began, the fact that she had ruined every chance of giving her an apology and have it be accepted already clear to her by the way Paya took another step away from her.

“No. You are right. It isn’t fair to ask that much of you.” Paya continued to back away from her. “I just wanted you to know that people here see you as their saviours and not as the people responsible for everything that has happened, that’s all, so now that that is done, I will leave you to change.”

“Wait!”

But it was too late; Paya had already spun around and in just a couple of steps, she had reached the stairs, soon turning around the corner, the sound of steps still echoing in the room for another couple of seconds before even that disappeared.

For a moment, Zelda considered whether or not she should try to run after her to apologise properly. It was what was right, what her father would have told her to do. In the end, it was exactly that, the fact that she could almost hear him tell her not to gain enemies, to always stay civil with everyone, that kept her from being able to move, Zelda instead finding herself staring down at the clothes Paya had brought her.

Though Zelda was sure that almost everything would have looked soft, clean, and comfortable after weeks in muddy trousers and a shirt that felt like it consisted of more holes than actual, intact fabric, there was no doubt in her mind that the clothes would also have been luxurious in the past, the tunic and trousers clearly made to be worn and still allow their wearer to move freely. However, as she took in the size of the clothes, the conclusion to the question of who had been the one to let her borrow them was also obvious. Even though Zelda knew that she had yet to meet everyone in the village, making the fact that they looked like they would fit her a weak piece of evidence to base the conclusion on, as she breathed in, it was clear that, just like the rest of the house, they were another reminder of Paya.

Zelda was not sure how long she stood there, debating whether or not she could accept the kindness after having just made Paya flee from her own room, but in the end, the fact that she could not afford to give Paya any reason to think that she had declined the offer was what made her pull her old shirt over her head to instead put on the clothes.

+++

Breakfast was a silent affair. The best thing Zelda could say about it was that Ganondorf showed up, quelling the worry that he might have changed his mind and left in the darkness of the night. As she watched him sit there, though, looking at how he stared down at his slice of bread with an expression that did not leave any doubts about how he did not want to be disturbed, brows pulled together and his mouth a thin line as he visibly struggled to keep back the tears, it did not feel much like a comfort. She had been starving only the day before, but now, Zelda struggled to make herself eat more than a few bites of bread, her stomach protesting the idea of eating and bile rising in her throat every time she would become aware of the presence towards the back of her mind. Pushing it back down, Zelda tried her best to imagine what other people felt like, what it was like not to have the spirits of past incarnations inside of her. She could not imagine it. Thinking back to her childhood, Zelda could not recall a time where it had not been there, lying right below her own consciousness. It was not quite a voice per se, or at least it did not sound like a voice the same way she would hear it when reading the Gerudo books Urbosa had given her for her birthday, Zelda despairing over the fact that she was able to hear how the words were pronounced in her head but unable to form even a single sentence without Urbosa offering her tips and corrections. Instead, as Zelda tried her best to listen for the voice, only for the sense of unease to turn into the dread of knowing that she would have to face Impa and the truth about what had happened again soon, the fear making Zelda wince every time she would hear even the slightest creak from the door, convinced that it was Impa who had come to find them, the only way she could describe it was as a presence, always there somewhere in her mind, but having been able to let her believe that it was just herself for so long.

“So… are the two of you all right?”

The silence had lasted for so long that by the time the end of it came, Zelda had to pause for a moment before realising that someone had really said something. Looking towards the source of the sound, Zelda supposed that she should not have been surprised to see Link look up from his breakfast, casting glances in both hers and Ganondorf’s direction as the only answer he received was several seconds of thunderous silence.

She had to do better. If she could not change the fact that she was at the very least partially involved in the reason for why the world had come to an end, Zelda could make sure not to push away the only two people in the world who might possibly understand her.

Forcing herself to swallow the bite of food, the bread becoming cardboard in her mouth, Zelda made sure to keep her hands below the table to hide how they shook as she looked over at Link. “Somewhat,” she said, deciding that only being able to tell a little lie was a better than blurting out every thought that had gone through her head during those last few days, “I mean, considering everything we have just been told, I would suppose that I am doing relatively well.” from across the table, Zelda could feel how Ganondorf stared at her, the frown clear on his face, so she made sure to only look at Link as she spoke.

That was a mistake. Looking back and forth between her and Ganondorf, it was clear that Link had noticed that something had happened, the slight moment of hesitation before he spoke letting Zelda know that the only reason he did not address it directly was that he did not want to unwittingly make it worse. “Okay, it’s just that neither of you looked all right when you left, so I just wanted to—”

“And can you blame us?” the question was followed by the sound of porcelain against wood, Zelda’s mind only registering the source of the sound a moment later. Ganondorf had slammed his hand down onto the table, and though he had not moved to stand up, from the way he was blinking quicker and quicker, Zelda knew that it was only a matter of time before he would leave the room just as he had done the day before. “How—” Ganondorf gestured towards Link, “how can you be this calm? I get that you are the hero, but do you not realise what this means for us, for me? This disease, this cycle, it is all connected to us, so even though we never wanted for it to exist, this disease is, in a way, our fault. Why—I can understand that Zelda is shutting it all out and refusing to share her feelings with us, but how—how can you sit there and be so calm about all of it? How?” just like that, Zelda saw how all energy left Ganondorf, making him slump down once again, giving off the impression that had it not been for the fact that he sat with his right forearm leaning against the table, he might completely have fallen to the ground.

Still, even though Zelda had flinched when he had first reacted by demanding an answer, as she turned to look over at Link, Zelda had to admit that Ganondorf had a point. While not looking anywhere near as relaxed as he had done before, the pull at the muscles around his cheeks drawing the edges of his mouth downwards, erasing any illusion that he was really so calm about everything, Link looked much more at ease than Ganondorf and significantly more at peace than what Zelda felt like as she tried to will herself into letting go of the part of her consciousness that connected her to the past.

Slowly placing his utensils down by his plate, Link looked over at them, the look on his face being one of not quite pity but also not the same as the smile from the man who had agreed to follow them to Lurelin Village, all three of them wordlessly reaching the decision to all use Ganondorf’s hope of being able to find his aunts as a lifeboat to keep them afloat. “Listen,” Link said, and Zelda could both hear and see how he struggled not to get swept up in the general atmosphere of discourage and despair that clung to the air around them, “I could not find you yesterday—”

“Of course you couldn’t,” Ganondorf said with what Zelda was sure was supposed to be a sneer but sounded more like a sob, completely devoid of any anger, sadness instead taking its place, “I wasn’t exactly in the mood to discuss the fact that I am apparently the reincarnation of the evil king from the legends with anyone after having just been informed of it moments before.”

Link held up his hands. Zelda could not tell if the gesture was meant to be placating or as a signal for them to be silent for a moment, nor did it matter as Link continued. “No, you misunderstand me. I am not saying it because I was annoyed that I could not find you anywhere. I am telling you this because Impa was not done telling us about our pasts when the two of you left. I… well, apparently according to her, there is still a way for us to bring an end to all of this, the cycle, the reincarnations, everything.”

Zelda could tell how Ganondorf’s demeanour shifted in an instant. The tense lines of his shoulders did not leave completely, but it did become a lot softer as he looked over at Link, clearly trying his best to fight down the little glimmer of hope that shone in his eyes as he angled his entire body towards him. “There is? How? What do we have to do to achieve that? Is it something that we have to go out and find or—”

“Whoa.” Link shook his head. “She hasn’t told me exactly what bringing an end to the cycle would entail, just that it was a possibility she would have to bring up again once the two of you were back.” he finished the sentence by stabbing at a piece of bread.

Before Zelda was able to do anything, whether that would have been to ask for him to elaborate or to apologise for having seemingly been part of the reason for why Link still did not know just what they would have to do, the creak from the doors called for her attention. Hearing how the others followed her lead, Zelda turned, leaving bread to be bread on her table to instead look over at the doors as they were thrown open to allow Dorian to step into the house, Impa following along behind him.

He looked horrible. That was the first thing Zelda noticed, a large, purple bruise forming beneath his right eye, covering most of his cheek, only slowly fading as it began to reach down towards his jawbone. Immediately, the question of what had caused it appeared in her mind, her first instinct being to blame it on his fight with the Yiga Clan, an answer that would not be enough to explain why she had not noticed it before that very moment. Though the piece of cloth he had pulled up to his nose might have been able to hide parts of the bruise, it would not have been anywhere near large enough to hide it completely. At least it did not appear that Dorian was in pain, or if he was, he hid it well, continuing into the room, walking up towards the little raised platform behind the table along with Impa, carrying himself with not even a slight limp that could otherwise have spoken of other hidden injuries.

Zelda had only just so opened her mouth to ask him what had happened when Impa took the words right out of her mouth. Sitting down on the dais, it felt almost like the eye that had been painted onto her hat was looking directly at them as she took in the sight of them, the way her gaze passed over her making Zelda acutely aware of just how she must look, eyes still red and puffy after having cried herself to sleep and her hair a mess, but she did not comment on it. Instead, she nodded to herself once before fixing them all with the same steely expression as she spoke. “I see that you have all taken in the full extent of what we discussed yesterday,” Impa began, and had it not been for how Zelda would not exactly call it a discussion, she might have laughed in disbelief at how she managed to make it sound like they had discussed something minor and unimportant, the weather or how they would have to move some of the cuccos, and that they had not just utterly brought an end to everything they thought they had known about the world and their place in it, “and so, I think that it is high time that we turn our attention towards what we will have to do to bring an end to the cycle. As you might have noticed, Dorian is here with me.”

Dorian waved at them, and Zelda had to admit that if he was feeling even halfway as uncomfortable as they did, he was doing a tremendous job at hiding it. Accidentally meeting his gaze directly, seeing how he sent her a beaming smile, Zelda could not completely silence the echo of Paya’s voice in her mind. They had waited for them to come and help save them from everything that had happened, or at least that had been what Paya had told her back when she had attempted to assure her that even if people were to know about how they were directly tied to the disease, they would not resent her. With how Dorian had not even blinked as Impa had spoken about cycles, not once dropping the calm expression to show confusion, Zelda had to believe that he was already aware of that. But for as much as she wanted to believe that Paya might have been right, that he knew and still looked at them to see the group he had decided to risk his life to save, she could not completely dispel the fear that lay as a stone in her stomach.

Unfazed by the fact that Ganondorf and Link had also redirected their attention towards Dorian, Impa continued. “Now, he has just returned from his last mission to Clock Town to find further evidence of just what exactly it is that the Yiga Clan is planning, but he has told me that he will be more than happy to take care of your training, so Ganondorf and Link, if you would—”

“Wait.” Ganondorf’s cup clattered as he dropped it halfway between having been about to take a sip of it and trying to place it back onto the table, instead letting it fall to the floor. “Training? What are you talking about? Like, with weapons or something like that?” the silence that followed the question answered that question, something Zelda could see that Ganondorf knew as well as he shook his head, the motion making his hair fly around his head. “No. Why would we even do that? I mean, it is not like we can defeat the cycle or the goddesses in a battle and then have that fix all of this, right?” he threw a glance in Link’s direction, perhaps hoping to get an actual answer, but receiving little more than a look of equal bewilderment. Zelda was equally unable to think of an answer, so she remained silent, letting Ganondorf continue. “Besides, with us being the incarnations of past enemies, would it not be a bad idea to teach me how to fight? I mean, should the worst thing come to happen and—and make me turn against them, would it not be better if… if I at least did not have the same abilities in battle as Link?” the tremble in his voice was barely noticeable, only there in the last syllable, but Zelda could still tell the exact moment Link heard it from the way he reached out to place his hand on Ganondorf’s arm.

He kept it there even as he looked up at Ganondorf, making sure to maintain eye contact as he spoke. “No, it will not be better that way just as it will never happen, and if it does, I know that Zelda will make sure to tell both of us snap out of it.” there was a slight pause, Zelda realising a second too late that they were waiting for her to respond.

“Of course,” she said, feeling the warmth rise in her cheeks, “I would not allow anything to happen to either of you.”

“There you see. Zelda is going to be there to make us see reason if anything like that ever were to happen.”

“But you can’t be sure that she will be able to do that,” Ganondorf argued, “what if she is not there when it happens? Then who will stop us before we can do anything we would have regretted if it had not been for the cycle and the lives we have lead before? Besides, you and I both remember the first time we met, Link. How can you be so sure that Zelda will be able to get through to us if we return to that kind of behaviour?”

The confidence in Link’s voice faltered for a moment, but it was back a second later, Link raising his chin to look directly up at Ganondorf. “Well, she managed to do it back then, so if that is the worst-case scenario, at least we know that she will be able to handle it.”

Ganondorf did not look convinced by that at all, but he did not get the chance to bring up a counterargument as Impa cut through their discussion with a single cough. “Actually,” she said as they all looked back over at her, “you will be training not for the event where you might have to draw your blades to fight one another, but to be able to defend yourself against the Yiga Clan.”

“I thought that Kakariko Village was safe from the Yigas.” Zelda looked back and forth between Dorian and Impa, the memory of sunlight glinting in metal blades making her throat feel constricted. “You said that we would be safe here.”

“It is,” Dorian said, drowning out the beginning of a response from Impa, “to the extent of our knowledge, the Yiga Clan does not know of the existence of this village, nor have they every given us any indication that they would be willing to leave Hyrule National Museum to begin to search for our base.”

Exchanging glances with Ganondorf and Link, Zelda could tell that they were all thinking the same thing: it had been evident that the Yiga Clan cared about the artefacts within the museum more than they cared about the museum itself, with a particular kind of attention having been given to the Master Sword, the sword that was now within Kakariko Village. Would the rest of the collection they had amassed in the wake of the end of the world really be enough to keep the Yiga Clan from trying to track down the sword, or would they find that they were out there right in this very moment, trying to follow the path they had taken to escape? The purple bruise on Dorian’s face kept on drawing her attention towards it, Zelda trying her best to quieten her mind, to push away the question of why they had gone to Clock Town, if they had evidence that the Yiga Clan might have left the museum and was simply deciding not to share it with them.

Clearing her throat, Impa called for their attention. “Yes, as Dorian said, the intent behind the decision to let you receiving training is not to prepare you for any scenario where you will turn against one another, quite the opposite in fact. If we wish to bring an end to the cycle, the three of you will have to be able to face what first created it, and as such, you might experience danger in your quest to go back to the source of it all. For that reason, I have asked Dorian to be your instructor. Link,” at the mention of his name, Link sat up a little straighter, still not removing his hand from Ganondorf’s arm, “the level of skill with which you wielded the Master Sword back at the museum was an impressive feat, but if you want to be able to wield it without having it drain your body and mind of energy, you will have to be able to use your own strength rather than that of your past incarnations.”

Link bowed his head, looking like he was not at all surprised by her words.

Maybe he really wasn’t, Zelda mused as she looked over at him. Perhaps it was something he had already discussed with Impa the day before, back when Ganondorf had fled the house and Zelda had followed in his footsteps moments after.

She could not tell if her assessment of the situation was correct, only that Impa did not stop there, instead gesturing towards Ganondorf as she continued. “Ganondorf, I know that you might not want to learn how to use a weapon effectively, but I promise you that you will only bring more danger to your friends by refusing to participate. Do you understand?”

A single glance at Ganondorf’s face would have been enough to tell anyone that he did not agree with her at all, meeting Impa’s glare with the desire to object to the idea written across his face, but after only a moment of silence, he averted his gaze from hers, mumbling something that, while not being entirely audible to Zelda, seemed to be a satisfying enough answer for Impa to accept it.

Beginning to rise from her seat, Impa clasped her hands together. “Good. In that case, I will entrust Dorian with the responsibility for your training. Listen to him; he is the one among us who has the most experience, both when it comes to self-defence and in trying to teach others—”

Ganondorf and Zelda opened their mouths at the same time.

“But then what about—”

“What about me?”

Impa barely paused to look back at them, the only reaction that Zelda could see being one that spoke of confusion, almost like she could not believe that they would ask her that question. With an expression of someone who had already halfway left the conversation behind, Impa sent her a look that so clearly told her that there had been no need for the question. “You are going to come with me. We have a lot of things to discuss, so not wasting any more time would be ideal.”

“But…” seeing how Impa did not stop again, already heading towards the doors, Zelda found herself following her example without even thinking about it, torn between the need to follow her and the sound of urgency she said those words with and the fact that Ganondorf and Link were staring at her, Link looking like he was seconds away from getting up to walk with her and Ganondorf looking towards Impa, the crease between his brows telling them everything they could have needed to know about what he thought of the idea of splitting up like that.

In the end, that was what made Zelda let out a breath, feeling almost like she was going to collapse at any moment, force a mask of confidence onto her face, and walk out of the house to catch up with Impa. Behind her, she could hear the hushed whispers of Ganondorf and Link, feel how they were looking after her as she left, but the wood of the doors soon muffled the sound of their voices to a point where she could not make out the individual words anymore.

Her stomach felt like it was trying its best to make her regret having eaten breakfast, twisting and turning as Zelda all but ran down the stairs to catch up with Impa, the old woman continuing towards the path leading between the two tall hills. She did not move quickly, not by Zelda’s standards at least, but there was something to the way she carried herself, not looking back and never slowing down, that gave off the same impression as if she had sprinted, Zelda only catching up with her as she stopped in front of the gravestones she and Ganondorf had looked at only the day before.

Then, as if she only then realised that Zelda was there, Impa turned around. The look on her face was not harsh, not full of contempt and disappointment, but Zelda still found herself taking a step back as Impa slowly nodded before speaking. “How are you doing right now, Zelda?”

It was a ridiculous question, the only thing that kept Zelda from outright laughing being the fact that Impa had asked it with such a serious tone in her voice that she could feel every last laugh shrivel up to die in her throat. They were here, having lost everything; they had thought that they had found a new goal in the dream of getting to Lurelin Village, only to then be told that the feeling of not quite belonging, of always being just a little too invested in the legends, had a reason behind it, that reason being the cycle that had brought the disease into existence, and Impa was asking her how she was doing.

With the feeling of not quite being present, feeling like she was looking down at the scene from above, Zelda found herself shrugging. “I… I guess that I am doing reasonably well… all things considered, I mean.” she could not even determine if that was an outright lie. She had not entertained Ganondorf’s idea of running away, of trying to outrun their destinies. That had to count for something, only, Zelda was not certain if it was a good sign, or if she should have fought more to resist the idea. After all, what did it say about her that she was so prepared to accept the fact that she might share part of her soul with princesses of the past? For all she knew, the feeling of not belonging could just as well have been the effect of having lost everything. Truly, there were numerous ways of explaining what had happened, why she felt the way she did, that did not involve her having to accept the words of a stranger telling her that she carried with her part of the souls of both a goddess and of the past princesses of the country.

With a look that made Zelda ponder the question of whether or not she could read her thoughts, Impa tilted her head to the side. “But you are upset, are you not?”

The humourless chuckle tore its way out of her mouth before Zelda got the chance to keep it from happening, the words that followed feeling almost like there had been torn a hole in the wall she had constructed to keep her feelings inside, allowing them to fill the world around her. “Of course I am upset! I am—goddesses, I am angry and—and betrayed and everything else!”

Impa simply looked up at her, the only reaction to her outburst being a slightly raised eyebrow. “Betrayed you say? Betrayed by whom?”

“I don’t know!” Zelda made an all-encompassing gesture. “Whoever created the cycle in the first place, the Golden Goddesses, Hylia, whoever was responsible for all of that and making it so that I am apparently the incarnation of some past princess who doomed us all by refusing to see her own people suffer at the hands of the creator of the cycle. I mean, I am not even royalty, so why does it have to be me who got that part of her soul? Why could it not have been anyone else? Do you know how many people I had in my class who adored the legends and the princesses in them? Why could it not have been any of them? Why could they not have been the ones to survive the end of the world only to then be told that they were responsible for the decisions in some past life that led to the deaths of everyone today?” she heard how her breathing hitched, Zelda having to fight to force back the tears that turned the world around her into a blur of colours and questions she could not think of any answer to.

Against the echo of her own raised voice, Impa’s calm, almost monotonous tone of voice could hardly have created a starker contrast as she spoke. “I see. In that case, dear, I should have made myself even clearer when I told you that you are not to blame for what has happened. None of you are.”

“That was not what you made it sound like yesterday,” Zelda countered, “you told us that I had part of her soul inside of me, that I was the same as the princess who was willing to doom us to save her own kingdom.”

Impa only frowned slightly, refusing to raise her voice. Zelda wanted to hate her for that, for the fact that she could not at least bother to pretend to be as affected by everything that had happened as she was, her heart racing and her blood drowning out any sounds as the rush of it made her pulse feel like a drum in her ears, but she could not bring herself to muster up the feelings. For all Impa sat there, guarding her knowledge, each time Zelda tried to glare at her, tried to look at her and let her see just how she felt about the fact that it could hardly have been more obvious that she knew more than she was telling her, the image of her would flicker slightly, creating almost the effect of looking through paper by holding it up against a source of light, Zelda seeing the image of first an old woman who was in so many ways like Impa and in so many ways entirely different from her come towards her, helping her up from the ground, only for the figure to morph into that of a tall woman who looked down at her with a smile and an outstretched hand as she promised that everything would make sense if she would only trust her. It did not make sense, Zelda knew that, but it was enough to keep her from opening her mouth to tell Impa to either tell her everything she knew without keeping anything from her or to leave her alone.

There was no way of telling how long the silence between them lasted for. All Zelda could really be sure of was the fact that her heart was slowly beginning to beat a slightly more normal rhythm against her ribcage when Impa motioned for her to come closer.

The movement was small, but still more than enough for Zelda to know that Impa meant for her to see it, her voice soon bringing an end to the silence around them once more. “Come, Zelda. There is something I want you to see.”

She should have asked her just what she was talking about, just what she wanted her to see that was not already visible from where they stood, but Zelda could not bring herself to ask any of her questions, instead following along without uttering a word as Impa slowly began to make her way towards where the hill began to shelve down to the fields and rivers below. They stopped there, just before reaching the point where Zelda would have begun to sprint down the incline when she had been younger, laughing at the top of her lungs as she ran while her father would yell at her to be careful not to tear her clothing.

“What do you see here?”

The question was one with an easy answer. Zelda saw how the grass rose up far higher than she had ever seen it do before, the nature having been left without anyone to try to take care of it. In the distance, she could see how a tree had seemingly not had a strong enough root net to keep it upright, leaving it to instead lie on the ground, the roots reaching up into the air, Hyrule Castle Town visible in the distance, lying there as an expanse of skyscrapers and buildings that only barely were able to reach up above the top of the trees that made up the forest in front of it, Hyrule Castle left to sit on top of the cliff, looking almost like it looked out over the land below. However, as Zelda stood there, she knew that it was not what Impa wanted to hear, but for as much as she tried to figure out the correct answer. She could not guess what she wanted for her to say, much less what she herself wanted to see.

“I don’t know,” Zelda said, barely keeping herself from shrugging in response to the long look she received in return, “I guess that I am seeing Hyrule.”

“Exactly.” Impa said it like that was honestly the answer she had wanted to hear. “You are seeing Hyrule. It is not the same Hyrule as the one the Zeldas of the past saw, but it is the Hyrule you know and love nonetheless.”

Her tone of voice was more than enough for Zelda to know that, to Impa that should be more than enough to let her know just what she was trying to tell her, but as much as she tried to see what the point of it all was, Zelda found herself without an answer, leaving her with no other choice than to try her best to find even a tiny bit of enthusiasm to put into her response. “I guess.” already by the time the words had left her mouth Zelda could hear how she had failed to achieve even that. She had not been able to figure out what Impa was trying to tell her, and now, she could not even find the energy to put on a convincing enough show.

Perhaps Impa could sense the defeat that loomed right in front of them if she were to try to follow that path further out, for Zelda could almost see how she made the decision to change the subject as she looked over at her for a moment, only to then turn her attention towards the expanse of green in front of them once again. “I fear that you might have got the wrong impression of what I meant when I told you that you are share part of your soul with the princesses of the legends, Zelda. It never meant that you are the exact same person as they were, or that you have their entire soul inside of you, just as it does not in any way make you responsible for their choices in the past.”

“But then what _does_ it mean?” Zelda could hear the whine in her voice, could see the pity in Impa’s eyes, but even then, she could not find the energy to care enough to hide it, not when she might finally be close to getting an explanation for what was happening. “If I am not the same person, and I don’t share any part of myself with them, then why do you keep on telling me that I—and Link and Ganondorf as well—are incarnations of those people?”

“Zelda, you are upset and I understand that. But you are drawing the wrong conclusions and missing the ones you know to be true.” it was only the promise of soon receiving a full explanation that kept Zelda from retorting with a question of just how she was supposed to react to the idea that her father might have been right to always compare her to her ancestors as Impa shook her head at her. “You share a part of Hylia’s soul with your ancestors. It is that power that has been passed down to you, that power and nothing else. You are not the same person as the Zeldas who came before you, and just as they acted independently of one another, you too have to make your own decisions. You may hear them, but that does not mean that you are the same as those who have come before you.”

Part of her wanted to remain cold, wanted to show Impa that she refused to so easily give in to the comforting idea of that being true, but an even larger part of her could only feel relief at the realisation that, if that was true, then it would free her of the guilt of having been the one to make the decision that had led to the world she currently inhabited being one of death and decay. Perhaps that, the fact that Zelda could already feel a sigh of relief make its way out of her mouth was why she refused to give in to the temptation of believing her, instead shaking her head. “But I—I can feel them.” she looked over at Impa, halfway waiting for the moment where Impa would see her mistake and tell her that she was right, that Zelda truly carried the blame for what had happened. “I can feel their presence in my mind. How would I be able to do that if not for the fact that we are the same person deep down?”

But Impa refused to give her even that bittersweet satisfaction, looking at her with an expression of someone who at once felt for the person they were talking to but also had to try their best not to outright tell them that they were wrong. “The presences you feel are the voices of the spirit realm, my dear. I can assure you that you are not in any way responsible for what has happened in the past.”

“I—” Zelda could almost feel the attempt at denying the idea fall from her lips, feel how she was about to once again claim the guilt for what had happened, only for her to lose the words to do so. Looking at Impa, Zelda could try to convince herself that the only reason she gave up on that was that it was so clearly hopeless to try to make Impa see how she was responsible for what had happened, but deep down, Zelda knew that she could not deny the relief that filled the part of her mind that had been busy trying to force herself to recall a memory of her past life, trying to force any kind of reason for why everything had shifted, the world losing its meaning, to appear, as she accepted defeat. “So what about Ganondorf and Link, then? Can I tell them the same thing, that they are not directly connected to their past selves, that the connection is an inherited one and not one inherent to them?”

The answer was clear from the way Impa hesitated for a second too long before responding. “They… it is different for all of you. Much like you will have to find a way to navigate all of this on you own, they too will have to figure out how they will choose to regard all of this, whether to see it as a blessing or a curse.”

She could still remember how Ganondorf had broken down completely, how he had sobbed in her embrace. It had been horrible, both to witness, being unable to think of anything to say that would have made him feel even slightly better, and to feel resonate inside of her. For Zelda, there was little doubt about which of the two options was the truth for her.

“It is a curse,” Zelda said, making sure that her voice did not tremble in the slightest, not leaving even the tiniest sliver of uncertainty behind, “I have never asked for any of that, not for my father to be obsessed with how we descended from royalty, not to grow up and learn that it meant that I could never just be myself, that I would always have to measure up to some standard set by people who have been dead and gone for centuries, and certainly not to learn that I am connected to them by more than just distant familial relations.”

“But that also gives you the strength to change what has happened.” Zelda must have left an opening in her resolve not to falter in her conviction, for she could see how Impa spotted a chance as she continued. “Think about it, Zelda. You are still here. You, Link, and Ganondorf, you all have a chance of putting an end to the cycle.”

“But how?” Zelda crossed her arms in front of her, trying her best to ignore how a gust of wind sent chills down her spine. “You talk about how we have a chance of putting an end to this, but how are we going to do it?”

“That is a question with an answer you will have to discover for yourself,” Impa said, and Zelda could have sworn that she was doing it on purpose, trying her best to be as vague as possible, revealing just enough to keep Zelda from outright leaving, but not telling her enough for her to know what was going on.

“All right, then.” taking a deep breath, Zelda tried to force herself to calm down. “But what does that mean? You said that it is important that we know how to defend ourselves from the Yiga Clan, but then why did you bring me out here instead of letting me train with Dorian?”

“Your strengths lie elsewhere.”

Giving up on any attempt at keeping her temper from getting the better of her, Zelda threw up her arms in defeat. “And where exactly is that? You know what, you have told me absolutely nothing so far that I have actually been able to use for anything. Instead, you keep on telling half-truths and refusing to answer my question, and I am sick and tired of it. Answer me now, or I am going to leave for good. What do you mean when you say that my strengths lie elsewhere?”

She clenched her jaw, trying her best to let every last part of her expression signal that she meant it, that if Impa were to continue her little game of secrets, then she would not hesitate to tell Ganondorf that she had changed her mind and was ready to leave Kakariko Village behind. Link would come with them, Zelda was sure of that. If she and Ganondorf were to leave, he would not hesitate before coming with them. In her mind, she could already see it happen, see how they would bid Impa and the rest of the village goodbye to set out on their own once again. Maybe they would head towards Lurelin Village, deciding that Labrynna was the best option they had, even if they knew better than to expect to find anyone alive. Or maybe they would instead spend the rest of their lives roaming around Hyrule, continuing to use the supermarkets as a source of food until even that would spoil and force them out into the forests. After that point, Zelda was not nearly optimistic enough to believe that they would be able to survive for very long. And that was if she was able to believe that they would not be tracked down by the Yiga Clan long before starvation could get the chance to become a bigger issue than it already was.

Had Zelda been a better person, the guilt that rose in her chest as she imagined what Paya might say when she heard that they had left—Paya and her ability to insist that the village still believed in them and their ability to bring back a sense of meaning to the world—would have been enough to make her apologise and tell Impa that she did not mean it, that it had been her temper speaking and not her, but Zelda had already learnt that she was not that person a long time ago. And so, she continued to meet Impa’s stare directly, unblinking and unrelenting as Impa slowly let out a low sigh, the sound slowly morphing into a smile, much to Zelda’s surprise.

“You know what,” Impa finally said, “I may not be able to recall the exact memory of the meeting, but I am sure that I have met someone like you before, someone who was also prone to anger when she felt powerless. Very well then, to answer your question, have you ever felt like you did things that should not have been possible, like you were sometimes able to stop a disaster from unfolding?”

The answer came promptly, before Zelda had even got the chance to let the guilt of the idea that she might have been able to stop any of what had happened overwhelm her. “No,” she said, shaking her head, “no, I have never experienced that.”

Impa did not appear to be surprised, mirroring her tone of voice. “No, I thought that that might be the case, that you would not have been able to awaken your powers yet.” before Zelda got the chance to do more than open her mouth to ask her what she meant, Impa gestured for her to sit down next to her on the ground. Zelda obeyed, feeling how the dew that still clung to the grass cooled her hands even more as she placed them down on the ground to help balance herself as she looked over to take in how Impa took her time to make herself comfortable before continuing. “Zelda, to make a long story short, I am sure that you have noticed that the princesses of the legends often possessed magical abilities, the power to reach out to find help in the spirit world, if you will.”

It was such a simple sentence, and still, it took another moment for Zelda to realise just what Impa was trying to tell her, her hand flying up to cover her mouth as if moved by an outside force as she realised that she was not making it up, that she was indeed not drawing the wrong conclusions. “You mean that…?”

Impa nodded. “Yes. There are no reasons to believe that you do not possess the same abilities as those who came before you. If the magic came from the part of Hylia’s soul that was passed down from your ancestors to you, it would be foolish not to try to pursue it.”

“How?” the feelings of despair and uselessness left her in a second, Zelda barely able to keep herself from jumping to her feet. A second ago, it had been obvious that she had been the weak one in their group, the one who was neither brave, strong, or particularly clever, but now, if she was able to use her powers, she would be able to protect the others, to repay them for all the times they had been willing to risk their own lives to protect her. It was an invigorating thought, the adrenaline flowing through her veins as Zelda tried to put a little of the fidgetiness into the rhythm she tapped against the ground below. “How will I be able to use those abilities? Do I have the power to defeat the Yiga Clan? Can I protect the others and bring an end to anything that threatens—”

As drunk as she was on the idea of finally being able to be the one to stand between their little group and danger, Zelda did not miss the way Impa’s gaze turned dark, the warmth that had made its way into her eyes cooling in seconds, and though it should have been irrelevant to her, the opinion of someone who was little more than a stranger, Zelda still fell silent nonetheless.

The silence lasted for ages, Impa still looking at her like she was not quite sure what to say or how to do it, the worry and pity in her eyes soon accompanied by something Zelda preferred not to look at, not to recognise, as Impa spoke. “Zelda, I… I had feared that that was how you would react, and as such, I have to tell you right now that that, the anger and the rage you feel when thinking about the world and those who have wronged your friends and yourself, is never going to allow you to win, just as it is certainly not going to let you gain access to your powers.”

It felt like a needle in a balloon, all of the joy she had found in the thought that she would finally be able to do more than merely try her best to deflect the blows of the Yiga Clan while Ganondorf had to fight with everything he had to keep himself and Link alive abating from one moment to the next as Zelda felt her shoulders lower again but not bothering to find the energy to correct her posture. “Why?” she whispered the word, knowing that Impa would have heard it even if she had only thought it. “Why can’t I use my powers? Why—why is it a bad thing that I want to use it to be able to stand against those who have tried to kill me and my friends? How is that a bad thing to use them for?”

The answer was right there in front of her, Impa looking at her with such a long look that Zelda could name the exact moment where she averted her gaze, making the decision not to tell her.

She should have continued to beg and cry for an explanation, do anything she could think of that could possibly have made Impa tell her what went through her mind as she looked out towards Hyrule, but right then, Zelda could barely find the energy to keep herself from crying. Nothing about Impa’s behaviour and her refusal to fully answer her questions was justified, nothing at all. Here she was, having done everything she could to keep them alive for so long, time and time again finding that she lacked the strength to do as much as the others had done, and now, just as she was told that her ancestors had possessed what she wanted the most, the strength to defend and protect those around them, it was taken away from her, kept just out of her reach with a reminder that if she was just a bit better, a bit smarter, a bit more like her ancestors, then she would have been able to reach out to find it. But she could not even bring herself to do that; she was only able to listen to Impa as she told her that they would return to the topic the next day, her voice having a strangely soft edge to it, with the feeling that it was not real, that everything, all those weeks, had been nothing but a nightmare, one that lay above everything like a layer of mist to keep her from fully taking in anything she heard, growing inside her chest.

Really, as Zelda stood there, all she wanted was to go home, to lock herself in her room with her books and bury herself in tasks she knew she was capable of completing. Reading through her physics textbooks yielded results, both with how it gave her a reason to head to the library to find more books and in the way she could feel herself gain a better understanding of the subjects she would read about. That made sense. Physics, chemistry, biology, technology—Zelda knew how to handle that, could balance numbers in her head and remember the formulas that allowed her to predict what would happen. She could write down her assumptions to see how well they described reality without constantly stopping to doubt herself. This, however, Impa’s vague help and explanations that always stopped before they would have allowed Zelda to make sense of anything, she had no idea how to deal with. Instead, she was left with nothing but the feeling of failure every time she would find herself without an answer.

The decision was sudden, but as much as Zelda could hear Impa try to tell her something, she did not care, having already crossed the distance between the little hill and the rest of the village by the time she was able to recognise it as Impa telling her that she was strong and would be able to get through it.

She would have preferred it if Impa had just told her that she was being childish.

+++

Zelda spent the rest of the day simply walking around the village, trying her best to get a sense of knowing her surroundings. It was a far too easy task, considering the relatively small size of the village, and by noon, Zelda was sure that she would have been able to navigate the village with her eyes closed. Still, she did not return to Impa’s house for lunch, not even as she noticed some of the children around her whispering amongst themselves, their attempts at hiding the fact that they were talking about her amounting to little more than giggling and looking the other way when she would catch them looking at her. But no one came over to talk to her, and so, Zelda let it be. It was not the first time children had acted that way around her, and now she at least had Paya’s assurance that they had all connected her arrival with that of someone who would be able to help them to take her mind off the possibility that they might have heard about her failures.

The decision to skip lunch soon turned out to have its drawbacks, Zelda’s stomach rumbling so loudly as the sun finally began to sink down below the hills that she was halfway convinced that everyone could hear it as she gave up and began to walk back towards Impa’s house, dragging her feet the entire way. The last few metres up the stairs were the worst, leaving Zelda to stand in front of the double doors for a couple of minutes before she was able to bring herself to open them, an apology and an explanation for where she had been already waiting on her tongue, only to be stolen away by the sight that met her.

Seated around the little table in the middle of the room were Ganondorf, Link, Impa, and Paya. However, that was not what made Zelda have to swallow the question of whether or not she was in the right house before it would have broken through the atmosphere.

They were laughing. Ganondorf and Link were laughing, Link seemingly in the middle of a story, using his hands to wave as he described some kind of feint that Dorian had taught them, Ganondorf looking at him with a sparkling sense of glee in his eyes.

With her stomach feeling like it had been replaced with a rock, Zelda let her gaze drift from the two of them to instead land on Impa. She sat there, with her side turned towards the door, looking completely absorbed by the story, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

None of them had even noticed that she was there. The seconds continued to pass by, but Zelda could only stand there, looking at them while the feeling of having just been kicked in the stomach grew heavier and heavier with each passing second. They had not noticed that she had arrived, which meant that they had also not been particularly worried about whether or not she would show up at all.

She was halfway about to turn around to leave without a word, the question of just where she would sleep or what she would do to try to handle the hunger pangs only a distant noise in her brain when compared to Ganondorf’s snicker as Link recounted how he had been able to trick him into lowering his guard only for Ganondorf to bring him out of balance with a quick series of jabs with the wooden sword they had been given to train with, when Zelda noticed Paya turn away from the story.

“Zelda?” Paya had already jumped to her feet, taking a step towards her, when the three others looked up, first at Paya and then, following her line of sight, over at Zelda, Ganondorf’s eye lighting up even more, as impossible as Zelda would have believed it to be a moment earlier, and Link placing what looked like a meat skewer down on his plate to instead point towards her.

“We were just wondering where you were! Do you want to come over and listen to how I was able to trick good old Ganondorf here into believing that I was really about to fall for a simple distraction only to then show him that I can actually move pretty quickly when I need to?”

Zelda did not get the chance to respond before Ganondorf had placed his cup back down onto the table, shaking his head at Link. “Yeah, of course I didn’t expect for that to happen, given that that was not what Dorian had told us to do.”

“I am hearing a lot of excuses from you, old man.”

Ganondorf pressed a hand to his chest in mock hurt. “Hey, I am only two years older than you! That’s hardly enough to make me old.”

“No,” Link said, the mischievous smile not doing much to convince anyone that he would agree with the sentiment, “but your reactions certainly are! Seriously, falling over like that? I hardly put any effort into the attack—Dorian agreed with me as well.”

Distantly, Zelda could hear Ganondorf defend himself, his voice not carrying any kind of resentment as he said something about how he had only reacted that way because he had been surprised, but she could not bring herself to do more than to look at them without properly seeing them, listening to their voices without properly hearing them. Instead, as Zelda watched, the room around her almost seemed to shift, colours bleeding together and voices growing alternatively deeper and higher, until, finally, she was no longer looking at her two closest friends as they sat inside the home of someone who was still very much a stranger to all of them. Instead, Zelda saw stone walls and banners hanging from the ceiling, the window she was watching the scene through obstructing her view slightly as she made sure to leave plenty of space for the person next to her to look as well, the two of them leaning in to take in way the red hair of the man walking towards what looked like a throne reflected the lights above him. It happened at once, a strong feeling of déjà vu washing in over her as the room tilted around her. From somewhere far away, Zelda heard her someone say her name and felt how someone, perhaps the same person, reached out, one arm wrapping around her and the other holding onto her upper arm as they kept her from falling to the floor.

“—you all right?”

Zelda blinked and pressed a hand against her temple, trying her best to tear herself away from the window, the stones, the banners, every last thing that had appeared in her mind, to instead return to her true surroundings. Little by little, almost like a headache that slowly had to admit defeat when faced with analgesics, the fog began to lift, leaving Zelda to take in the fact that everyone was looking at her.

Link still sat in his seat, the way he leant in over the table making it clear that he had been caught halfway between having been about to reach out for his meat skewer and telling a story, something that at least allowed Zelda to try to trick herself into thinking that his wide eyes and puzzled expression could have been due to that. Continuing over to Paya, Zelda saw shock and worry, Paya looking back and forth between her and Impa.

Impa. Zelda had never thought that she would be relieved to take in her expression after having just lost her composure in front of everyone, but as she looked towards her to see that she was at least not looking at her with the same kind of worry as the rest of them, looking almost strangely pleased, Zelda had to admit that she had been wrong to assume that.

Going over the names in her head, Zelda knew that she was still not truly present in the moment yet as it took her another couple of seconds to realise that the reason she could not see Ganondorf when she looked at the seat next to Link’s was that he had moved from his spot to help steady her. Out of the corner of her eye, Zelda could just barely see how he looked down at her, a worried expression on his face. A moment later, Ganondorf let go of her, Zelda having to fight not to let it show how little she trusted her body to be able to support her, putting on a smile that felt like it would split her face in half as Ganondorf took a step forwards, standing just so that she could not avoid looking at him without outright having to turn her face away from him.

“Hey,” Ganondorf said, and more than anything else, Zelda wanted to tell him that there was no reason for him to speak with so much compassion in his voice, not when they both knew that she had messed up, wanted to tell him to just leave her alone with the crushing weight of knowing that she had wasted an entire day, not getting answer nor learning anything about the powers Impa claimed she possessed, but she could not bring herself to say anything, leaving Ganondorf to continue, “Zelda, are you okay? What happened there—you looked like you were about to pass out.”

She was saved at the last moment before the silence that followed the question would have become unbearably awkward by what was possibly the last person Zelda would have expected to come to her aid.

Going through with the paused motion of rising from her seat, Paya made eye contact with her before walking over to where both Zelda and Ganondorf were still standing by the door.

“I think that it might have been the result of low blood sugar.” Paya offered up the explanation, and as much as Zelda knew that there would not be a single person who would honestly believe it with how Paya’s voice shook while delivering the lie, she could have cried with relief. However, given the situation, Zelda found the last bit of energy she had left and made sure to use it to do nothing more than to make a faint sound of general agreement as Paya continued. “I mean, I guess it would make sense since you didn’t get to eat lunch—I am sorry about that, by the way. I tried to find you, but I could not figure out where you had gone.” before Zelda could have mumbled an apology, Paya had already reached out towards her, taking her hand in hers as she looked over her shoulder, the change in her tone of voice marking the next sentence as being meant for Impa more than anyone else. “I will get her upstairs. She can eat dinner up there. Is that all right with you, grandmother?”

It felt like she was going to shrink beneath Impa’s gaze, becoming smaller and smaller until she would disappear completely. Zelda had to keep herself from leaning against Paya’s shoulder, her entire body already angled towards her as Impa finally nodded. “Yes, do that, dear. I think that it would be for the better if Zelda was able to get a full night of sleep now. In fact, I think it would be best for all of us to head to bed soon. Link, Ganondorf, Dorian has made sure to ask Purah for some of her ointment. I haven’t tried it myself, but from what I have heard from her, it serves as a nice pain reliever.”

“You don’t have to stay and listen,” Paya whispered into Zelda’s ear, tightening her hold on her just a bit more as Zelda finally lost her battle with gravity, leaning against her even more, “come on, let’s get you upstairs.”

Somehow, they were able to make it up the stairs. It felt like nothing less than a miracle, Zelda still struggling to look down and see her own feet and the wooden steps rather than the grey of stones from before, a fact that forced her to instead lean against Paya as she continued to tell her to lift her foot, move forwards, lift her foot, and move forwards over and over again. Time around her felt almost non-existent, Zelda at once overcome by the need to lie down, close her eyes, and then be able to not have to face the world around her for several hours and the wish that Paya would not have a reason to let go of her just yet.

Perhaps it was due to the fact that she could count the number of hugs she had been given during those past few weeks—and really, those past few months as well—on one hand, but as Zelda fought to stay present, she found that focusing on the way Paya had wrapped her right arm around her, her hand holding onto her right upper arm, keeping Zelda close to her as they moved up the last couple of steps together, helped more than any attempt at trying to force herself to name every object around them did.

Of course, as much as Zelda might have wished that the very idea of time would have ceased to exist to keep the moment from arriving, they soon reached the end of the stairs, and although Zelda wanted to remember the way Paya did not let go at once, the two of them instead standing in the room for another moment, Zelda leaning against her side, what her mind ended up fixating on, the memory Zelda could already feel being stored away in her mind, was the way Paya looked over at her, her eyes widening ever so slightly, giving off the impression that she only then noticed how close they were standing to one another, and how she took a step backwards, away from Zelda, the next moment, her cheeks already tinged red as she mumbled something about going to get her something to eat, not looking up at her for even a moment, instead talking to the floor more than to Zelda, before she turned away from her and all but ran back down the stairs.

How it could make her feel even worse than she already did was beyond Zelda. There she was, having already wasted an entire day, being none the wiser about just what she would have to do to bring an end to the cycle, having returned back to Impa’s house to learn that she was the only one who felt that way, and still, the fact that Paya did not want to talk with her, instead making it clear that she was trying her best not to spend more time with her than what was absolutely necessary, was able to leave her with the feeling of how the last bit of hope she had been able to find for the day left her in an instant.

Everything hurt, but Zelda could not muster up the energy to begin to ponder the reasons for it, nor could she convince herself to stay awake until Paya would return, hopefully bringing along an opportunity for Zelda to apologise for her behaviour along with the dinner. It was the cowardly way of handling everything that had just happened, no one would have to tell Zelda that, but she could still not bring herself to care as she flopped down onto the bed, only pausing for a moment to pull off her boots before she could have dirtied the sheets even more than she already did by going to sleep in the clothes she had been wearing all day before she closed her eyes and let the wondrous feeling of weightlessness overwhelm her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go, even more issues Zelda has to work through if she wishes to bring an end to all the destruction!


	15. Chapter 15

For all Impa had told her about how she had powers, over the course of the following week, the only thing Zelda got to discover was the new depths of despair and the feelings of being unable to do anything to change just that that accompanied each failed attempt at figuring out how she was meant to use her powers.

If there had just been a way for her to escape from it, some way for Zelda to go back to a point in time where she did not have to wonder whether or not the whisper she would hear came from the spirit world, only to then turn around and see that Ganondorf had been trying to get her attention for the past couple of seconds, a time where she just had to figure out a way to secure a reserve of food and water, she would have done it in a heartbeat. It was not a thought she would ever have thought that she would have, and yet, as time continued to pass, days slowly adding up to an entire week, she the feeling only grew alongside the number of times where she was barely able to keep herself together, forcing herself to remain silent as Impa would sigh and tell her that they would try again tomorrow.

Tomorrow. It felt like she heard the word over and over again. The cycle of reincarnation and hate might have appeared to ruin the lives of everyone in the world, but as the days passed, Zelda soon discovered another cycle, one that consisted of waking up, sometimes seeing Paya’s eyes rest on her for another second, almost making it appear like she was going to talk to her, only for Paya to avert her gaze when she noticed her looking, and then going down to eat breakfast to the sound of how Ganondorf and Link would be talking about everything they looked forwards to learning during the day while being aware of how she was only going to waste yet another day. It should have been an infectious kind of enthusiasm, and, in a way, Zelda supposed that it was just that, but rather than bringing her hope, it only brought her to a point where she was almost able to forget that she could not come along, the result being that her stomach would sink to the floor each time Dorian would come to accompany Ganondorf and Link to the training grounds, leaving Zelda behind with Impa.

It was not that she did not like Impa, not at all. Zelda doubted that any amounts of feeling lost would ever have been enough to make her ignore how she could see the silhouette of other people, people she felt like she had once known, whispers of something she could not quite make out moving past her, whenever she would look at her. But still, for as much as Zelda tried to remain patient and understanding, clenching her jaw to keep herself from saying something she would regret when Impa would spend hours trying to get her to talk about her life, fact was that they did not make any progress, Zelda returning home in the evening to listen to Link and Ganondorf talk about the bruises they had received during their training without being able to tell them anything about her day. One Wednesday, Link had rolled up his right sleeve to show how a particularly well-executed series of attacks had drawn a yellow line up his arm, the bruise looking slightly green in the candlelight, and Zelda had tasted blood as she had bit into her lower lip to keep herself from saying something she already knew she would regret later on, instead allowing the feelings to bottle up inside of her as she continued on with the cycle of sleeping, eating, talking, eating, sleeping, and then repeating the entire thing over and over again..

They had just reached the second Monday of them staying in the village, Zelda being fairly confident that she was still able to keep track of the days, when Impa motioned for her to wait for a moment before Zelda got the chance to sit down in their usual spot next to the gravestones.

“Wait a moment, dear,” Impa said, clearly not extending the meaning of the command to herself as she sat down, the ornaments hanging from her hat clattering slightly as she moved, “there was something I wanted to talk with you about.”

“Yes?” Zelda heard the strained tone to her words, but decided that it was the best she could muster up the energy for right in that moment. “What is it?”

Clearly not in a hurry to tell her the answer to her question, Impa looked out over Hyrule for a moment before acknowledging the answer with the faintest hint of a smile. “Zelda, we have been working on allowing you to gain the understanding of how you are supposed to reach your powers for days now. Do you feel like all this training has made any difference for you? ”

Had she asked the question only a day before, Zelda might have been able to think of a lie, to nod and say that she was seeing progress. As it was, however, just maintaining her posture took every last bit of energy she had, all of it contributing to her continuing to remember her father’s mantra of shoulders back, chin slightly raised, and then keeping her expression open, keeping her arms at her sides rather than crossed in front of her chest to improve her image as well as her articulation. After that, she did not have any energy left to think of what she could say other than the truth, which was exactly what Zelda did. “No. I have not seen any differences since we first began training. In fact, I feel like I have even less of an idea about what I am supposed to be doing than I did back before I came to this village.”

Impa bowed her head. “I see. Well in that case, all we can really do now is to try to appeal to the goddesses yet again. Who knows, perhaps today will be the day where you will be able to solve the riddle of how to reach your powers.”

It was not that she had expected for Impa to show any outward reaction that would be able to outweigh a week of silent glances and thoughtful nods, not at all in fact. But still, for as much as Zelda tried to remind herself of that, of the fact that everything was as it had been the day before, that if she had been able to handle it back then, then she should also be able to remain calm, to remain silent, now. However, she could try to convince herself of that being the case for the rest of her life, and Zelda would still not have been able to ignore the bubbling feeling of frustration that rose up from the pit of her stomach, pressing against her chest, feeling like all air was being squeezed from her lungs, before finally manifesting in her jumping to her feet, her heart already beating madly in her chest as she looked down at Impa.

“No!” she all but yelled the word, and still, the only reaction she got was Impa slowly turning her head to look at her, eyebrows slightly raised, but otherwise not showing any sign of being surprised or shocked by her outburst, a fact that made Zelda continue. “I am not going to continue to ask for help from some goddesses, just as I am not going to sit here and talk with you like—like this is some kind of therapy session where you will in any way be able to do something to help me make sense of the fact that everyone is dead. Because they are; everyone is dead and gone, and the goddesses, both the Golden Goddesses and Hylia, did not do anything at all to try to stop it. They just let it happen, leaving us here like we aren’t even worthy of their time and attention! If they or you, for that matter, think that I am ever going to ask for their help to figure out the powers that I should already have by now, then you are going to have to change that plan quickly, because I will never look to them for help, not now and not ever!”

The sound of the wind moving through the mountain pass sounded like wailing, but around them, everything was deadly quiet.

Finally, Impa rose. The difference, though not much in regards to height, was still enough to make Zelda take an involuntary step backwards before she got the chance to remind herself that she had not done anything wrong, that, if anything, Impa was the one who had wasted over a week with pointless talks about the past and future while ignoring the fact that Zelda still had no idea about how exactly they would go about bringing an end to the cycle.

With a voice that did not reveal any reaction to her outburst, Impa brought an end to the silence once more. “Zelda, I understand that you are frustrated, but—”

“Frustrated?” Zelda heard her voice rise to a pitch that approached the point of being inaudible. “Frustrated—yes, of course I am frustrated! Why should I not be when I have yet to learn anything useful, when I am sitting here, waiting, while Ganondorf and Link are able to go out and learn about their powers, learn how to fight and defend themselves? Why would I not be frustrated when faced with the fact that you apparently know exactly what we will have to do but refuse to tell me what it is, instead having me sit here and try to describe how I feel when I am ignored or when people assume that they know me because of my ancestors? Why would I not be frustrated when faced with all of that, Impa? Can you give me one good reason for why you are acting the way you are? Can you?”

Forcing herself to give her even the slightest opportunity to answer, Zelda gasped for breath, her lungs screaming for oxygen after she had just spoken without stopping to breathe. The second become another, soon reaching a total of ten seconds if Zelda was counting correctly, something she would not be willing to bet on with how her thoughts where a maelstrom of half-finished sentences and ideas inside her mind but nevertheless enough for her to know that Impa had got her chance and had had to face the fact that she did not have any answers for her.

Letting out a snort, Zelda nodded to herself. “That is what I thought.” without another word, she turned on her heel and left the little hidden spot between the two hills.

She could not tell whether or not Impa tried to call out for her, tried to get her to stop and come back, nor did Zelda stop to wonder whether she would have liked her to. Instead, she continued to run, ignoring how her lungs were already burning, adrenaline and the effects of having only barely eaten enough to remove the immediate danger of malnourishment clouding her thoughts.

The buildings flew past her as Zelda turned around the corner, running along the main road of the village. There was no plan for her escape, no thought about where she would go, and still, Zelda found herself running towards the defile they had first made their way through in the early hours of morning, her, Ganondorf, and Link huddled together in the sidecar of the motorcycle. Distantly, Zelda was aware of how leaving now would also mean leaving the two people who were the closest thing she had to a family now behind, but it was not enough to break through the paramount need to get away from Impa and her cryptic instructions for her to listen to the goddesses, acting like that had been enough to help them so far, like the goddesses had done anything to try to stop the disease from unfolding around them.

Zelda could hear her pulse in her ears as she ran between the mountain walls, but she could not bring herself to slow down, not even as she had to gasp for breath, her muscles already beginning to ache. If she was injured and alone out there, she would not survive for long. Pulling a muscle came with far more severe consequences than it had done in the past where she had been able to go to the doctor to have a professional assess the damage and prescribe her analgesics to help with the pain. Zelda knew that, but she still continued forwards. As long as she ran, as long as the sound of her heartbeat echoed around her like thunder, she would not have to stop and think about what had just happened, which was exactly what she wished to avoid. If the choice lay between leaving the village behind for good and possibly risk dying alone out in the wild and stopping to think about what she had done, to hear the sound of how her voice had broken, gaining a childish lilt as she had lost all control over herself, echo in her ear, Zelda knew what she would prefer as her feet hit the ground below, sending dust up into the air behind her.

Her anger could only take her so long though. For as much as it had felt like a fire rising up inside of her, like it could never be extinguished, Zelda soon found that the aching pain in her side left her unable to run. In front of her, the narrow defile opened up to reveal a river, the bridge that connected the two sides looking unstable and old, moss growing on the stones, giving it an air of having been left there for ages. Perhaps that was really the case. After all, with how Zelda doubted she could have put more than a couple of kilometres between herself and the village, she doubted that the area around her was one that had often been visited by people in the past. Placing her left hand just above the centre of the pain in her side, her breathing sounding more and more like a wheeze in her ears, Zelda tried her best to calm down enough to think things through somewhat logically, and, suddenly, the option to cross it, to move further away from the village and her friends, seemed less and less appealing with every passing second.

Still, Zelda was not about to turn around and go back to Impa. She might not have been right to yell at her like that, but she still had her pride. She would not go back to be greeted with the expression of someone who had known from the beginning that she would come back again, the forbearing smile as Impa would tell her that it was all right before immediately asking her what had gone through her mind as she had fled. She could not return to that.

So, rather than moving further away from Kakariko Village or turning around to begin the long walk back to Impa, Zelda looked to the side, the sparkle of the sun being reflected in the water catching her attention. It was cold around her, the beginning of autumn waiting just around the corner, but Zelda still approached the lake, looking into the deep blue water as she slowly sat down, pulling off her boots. The leather-like material they were made of felt rough against her hands as she made sure to place them directly next to each other before rolling up the trouser legs of her borrowed clothes. Despite knowing that she was only imagining things, Zelda could not shake the feeling of being on fire, of having warmth envelop her as she crossed the few metres she had chosen to put between her boots and the water, desperate to make contact and try to bring an end to the sensation of being on fire.

The water was as cold as ice, Zelda feeling how every last muscle in first her feet and then her shins tensed for a moment before slowly beginning to relax again as she stuck her feet into the water. She could not remember having done anything in a long time that felt nicer. Sitting there, focusing on nothing but the sensation of the water moving around her feet, it was almost as if the rest of the world did not exist. There was no disease, no cycle, no burden on her shoulders, and no constant reminders of the fact that a person in the past who had been much like her was part of the reason for the outbreak of the disease and that she was supposed to know how to bring an end to the cycle. Her supposed powers did not exist; they were not constantly just out of reach, taunting her as Zelda remembered how she had never read anything about the princess struggling with her destiny in any of the legends. There no Impa to stand there, looking like someone she should have remembered while refusing to tell Zelda the answer to her questions. There was nothing and no one at all, only Zelda and the birds in the nearby trees, chirping to each other.

The sound of a twig breaking brought an end to the illusion.

Zelda should perhaps have leapt to her feet and felt how her heart sped up as the memory of the attack and the blades of the Yiga Clan would appear in her mind, but she could not even bring herself to make an attempt at identifying the source of the sound.

Another second passed, ruling out the idea that the Yiga might have found her, and Zelda remained exactly where she was as the sound of footfalls grew louder, moving towards her until, at last, Zelda spotted the brown colour of Paya’s boots out of the corner of her eyes.

She did not say a word as Paya slowly reached down to tug at the boots, pulling them off and throwing them in the direction of where Zelda had placed hers, keeping herself from looking to the side by fastening her gaze on the tree directly in front of her, pushing back down the wish to meet Paya’s gaze as she felt her look down at her, the gentle sound of the water surface being disturbed once again letting her know that Paya had joined her in sitting with her legs in the water.

The silence should have been uncomfortable, the kind of silence that accompanied her days with Impa, loud and with the sensation of it filling every last bit of air around her, coming into her lungs when she breathed, making her throat feel tight and constricted. Zelda should have registered the fact that Paya was there and immediately know deep down that she had been sent by Impa to let her know to come back home before it would become dark. Paya’s arrival should have meant a lot of things, but as Zelda sat there, at once acutely aware of how Paya was sitting only a little under a metre away from her and unable to even consider looking over at her, feeling like her cheeks were on fire, the only thing she could think about the silence was how nice it was to be able to be quiet and not feel like every passing second was sand in an hourglass that showed her how their time was coming to an end.

She received a warning that the silence would not last forever in advance in the form of Paya coughing slightly before speaking. “Zelda… are—do you need anything?”

Did she need anything? Zelda could have thought of a lot of things she needed, a plan and information about what to do being only some of them. If Impa had been there, she might even have said that, let her words become steel as she glared at her, but now, with Paya sitting there, her voice revealing how she had not been sure about whether or not to ask, Zelda could not bring herself to even consider it.

Instead, she shrugged weakly, knowing from the sound of a sudden intake of breath that Paya had noticed it. It did not feel good to know, not when Zelda would only need to close her eyes to imagine what Paya’s expression probably looked like, anxious and shy, but she still heard herself ask the question that occupied every last part of her mind with a voice that felt unrecognisable. “Did Impa send you?”

Paya was silent for a while before answering. “No, she did not,” she said, and although Zelda knew that the words should not have been audible among the sound of birds chirping in the trees and the flow of the river, she still heard every syllable, “I… I doubt that she would have thought me capable of finding the courage to leave the village like this.”

That got Zelda’s attention. Planting one hand on the ground, she pushed herself to the side so that she was no longer facing the opposite bank, but rather looking over at Paya as she reached up to fiddle with her necklace.

Maybe it was simply the effect of the sun being reflected and refracted in the surface of the water, but, to Zelda, it felt as if she had not quite looked at her before that moment, not properly, at least. She could not see any other explanation for how she had been able to miss the slight signs of the beginnings of a smile, Paya brushing a strand of silver hair back behind her ears, momentarily blocking Zelda from being able to see the tug of muscles that would no doubt grow to become a smile if she could just refrain from ruining it.

In that moment, getting to see that smile felt more important than anything else, so, making sure to think the sentences through before allowing them to leave her mouth, Zelda tilted her head to the side, sending Paya what she hoped would be interpreted as a quizzical look. “Are you scared? Out here, I mean?”

The tug became stronger as Paya returned Zelda’s attempt at an encouraging smile by moving slightly closer to her. It was a matter of centimetres, nowhere near enough for Zelda to stop thinking about how she must be staining Paya’s clothes by sitting there in the grass, how Paya was no doubt doing the exact same thing as she moved, and yet, that was exactly the effect it has, removing all thoughts of both their surroundings and the failure the last week had proved to be from Zelda’s mind as Paya spoke.

“Immensely. I am always scared. It does not really matter whether or not I am inside the village, not when I have no way of knowing when my life will come to an end again.” Paya’s breath hitched as she looked up towards the sky, Zelda finding herself mirroring her without thinking. “The only feeling being out here brings me is the certainty that I will not able to get back as quickly as I would otherwise have been able to, should anything happen. Still, I doubt that I would be able to do anything to help anyone if they are threatened by someone, so I suppose that it doesn’t really matter, does it? Besides, it is nice out here. There isn’t any noise or anyone asking me what I am doing. I take it that you wanted to escape from that for a bit too, right?”

She had no reason to feel guilty. She might have planned on leaving, envisioning how she would put as much distance between herself and Kakariko Village as she could to lower the risk of her changing her mind, letting the fact that she missed Ganondorf and Link lead her back, by removing her option of remembering the path she had taken, but, in the end, Zelda had ended up not doing it, instead going to sit with her legs in the water as her heart slowly found a more normal rhythm. If she did not mention it, no one would ever have to know what she had been considering.

Zelda could have tried to convince herself of that for hours; it would still not have taken away the feeling of guilt sitting in her stomach as her shoulders fell, Zelda lacking the strength to do more than mumble in response. “No. I… I was actually considering running away. I am not going to do it though.” she did not know why, but it felt important to assure Paya of that, to try to erase the fact that Zelda had seen how her eyes had widened as she had answered the question. “I promise that I am not going to do it and that I never even crossed this bridge. I just…” there was no end to the sentence, and so, Zelda let it trail off to become silence.

Trying to keep track of time, Zelda began counting along to her heartbeat, only to realise that it would not work. Though she was not in any danger, her heartrate was increasing with every passing second, Zelda slowly beginning to hear her pulse in her ears again. It made no sense. There was no danger, no feeling of someone watching her. It was just the two of them, and still, Zelda could not get her heart to understand that and let her heartrate go back to a less frantic pace.

Paya’s voice came as a welcome distraction from Zelda’s attempt at figuring out just what had happened. “Oh… I… yeah, I suppose I should have expected for that to happen.”

There was something there, something Zelda had to figure out what meant.

Feeling how a frown spread across her face, Zelda looked over at her. “What do you mean?”

“Just…” Paya kicked at the water, sending drops flying, ripples spreading through the surface of the water where they landed. “With how I told you about, well, my parents and all that just moments after meeting you and the way you reacted, I—I guessed that it was just a matter of time before you would leave again. I am sorry about that. Both for just throwing all that at you and for… well, for not properly apologising for it until now.”

She heard what she was saying, and if Zelda focused on the individual words, she was even able to get them to make a tiny amount of sense, but together, she could not figure out just what Paya was trying to tell her. With the feeling of being about to make a mistake rising in her throat, Zelda pulled her legs out of the water, resting her chin on her knees as she turned to face Paya. “Wait, what are you talking about? Paya, I didn’t try to leave because you told me about your family.”

“Really?” Paya looked at her with an expression Zelda knew too well, feeling almost like she was looking at herself, not quite willing to believe what the other was saying.

“Yes.” Zelda made sure to keep her voice firm, not allowing for there to be even the tiniest bit of uncertainty about whether or not she meant it. “Yes, of course that wasn’t the reason. I am actually happy that you told me about it—the reason that I did not bring it up with you again was that, well…”

“You thought I didn’t want to talk about it anymore?” Paya finished the sentence for her.

It was not the entirety of the explanation, but it was a beginning, so Zelda nodded. “Yeah… I… I thought that, with how I did not really want to talk about my father, it would mean that it was just as terrifying for you to tell me about your family, so, well, when I did not return the gesture by telling you about him, I supposed that you took it as—Nayru, I know this is going to sound weird, but I thought that you would take it as an insult.”

Paya hummed for a moment before answering. “No, I get that. I… I guess that I tend to overthink what other people might think of me as well.” she turned to the side, keeping both her hands on the ground as she leant forwards. It was not much, barely a change from how she had been sitting until then, but it was still enough for Zelda to find herself utterly unable to look away from her as she continued. “But if that was not why you left, then… what was?”

She could deny her the answer. Zelda could almost picture what would happen, how the weak smile would disappear in an instant to instead be replaced with fleeting glances that always ended the moment Paya became aware of the fact that Zelda had noticed them as she would move away from her, most likely stuttering some excuse before leaving her again. It was clear that she could not do that, but the truth still sat heavy in her stomach, making Zelda have to force herself to spit it out, explaining to Paya how she had yet to see any improvements, that she would sit down to eat dinner in the evening, listening to Ganondorf and Link talk about how Dorian had told them that they were showing great potential, while knowing that she was wasting time.

“They are doing all of that,” Zelda said, blinking quickly to keep back the sting of tears, “and I am just sitting there with Impa. I have no idea what we are supposed to do or how we should do it. All I know is that there is a cycle that uses us to bring destruction to Hyrule, that the disease was caused by the cycle not being able to repeat the last time the three of us were brought together, and that I am apparently supposed to have some kind of magical powers. I am standing still, and I can’t see why Impa keeps on trying the same tactic when it is obviously not working.”

“Maybe she is just hoping that you will be able to figure it out one day if you keep on approaching it the same way?” Paya offered with a tone of voice that made it clear that she did not even believe that herself. “I mean, right now, you at least know what you are doing. If you changed that, I think that Impa might be worrying that you would feel like you have wasted your time so far.”

Even through the hurt, Zelda could admit that it made sense. However, agreeing that something made sense was not the same as her agreeing with it, so she shrugged in response. “I guess it might be the case, but if so, I just cannot help but think that it is dangerous to assume that we have all the time in the world. I mean, the disease struck from one moment to the next, affecting everyone at once, and we had no way of knowing that in advance. Who is to say that the cycle will not repeat again, that since Ganondorf, Link, and I refuse to see each other as enemies, we will face a new disaster?” Zelda leant in over her knees, feeling how the position forced a sigh out of her lungs. “I don’t know anything about the cycle. I don’t know exactly what caused it or what we can do to bring an end to it, and Impa—” Zelda shook her head, “I know that she knows something, but I just cannot get her to tell me.”

“Uh, if I may…” moving closer to her, it was clear that Paya was fully blushing now. It was no longer a matter of a slight redness to the tip of her ears, but rather a blush that made the vivid colour of the Sheikah symbol that had been painted onto her face seem a little paler in comparison. “I actually asked Purah about it since the last time we spoke.”

Purah. Of course. It made sense to go to her, to seek out the person who liked talking about her theories with anyone who showed even the slightest willingness to listen, the one who possessed a level of knowledge about the world that Zelda had not seen anyone match. In hindsight, Zelda could have told herself that it was what she should have done, that she should have moved past Impa to instead ask her sister to explain what her place in their conversations about destiny and cycles was, but even sitting there, she could acknowledge the fact that, with how her thoughts had been a combination of despair and jealousy for most of the past week, she would not have been able to think of it herself.

It felt like the world went quiet around her as Zelda tried to understand what she was hearing, knowing that she must look dumb as she sat there, instinctively lifting her head up to look at Paya. “You—you did?” she asked, hearing how her voice rose a little.

Thankfully, Paya did not comment on it, merely nodding at her. “Yeah, I did.” the silence that followed must have been enough to let her know that Zelda was barely able to keep herself from asking, begging her to tell her what Purah had told her, for, the blush deepening a little, Paya continued. “Uh, I did not really understand—I guess that she was trying to describe it in a way she thought that I would get, so it might not be totally correct, but—”

“Paya.” Zelda cut into the ramble, barely catching herself in time before she would have followed the instinct to reach out and put a hand on Paya’s shoulder to try to calm her. Fearing that she would see that Paya’s blush had spread to her own cheeks as well if she were to cast a glance into the water, Zelda forced herself to look at Paya as she continued. “I know that. She was my teacher as well. Trust me; I am aware of the fact that she will sometimes use words I doubt anyone has ever used before. I just need to know the essence of what she told you, that is all.”

“Yeah—yeah.” Paya stuttered before clearing her throat. “Yes, I—I—never mind. I was just a bit… distracted. Anyway, she told me to think of the cycles and the way they manifests as pressure in a closed container where every new repeat of the cycle lowers the pressure a little.”

Zelda ended up closing her eyes to bring an end to the instances of her continuously find herself looking at Paya and forget what she had just said. Picturing a plastic container, trying her best to imagine how the pressure inside it would rise, the person responsible for it occasionally opening the lid a little, just enough to let a little of the air out before closing it again, Zelda nodded. “Yes, and then what?”

“Well, according to Purah, the way we can interpret… everything that happened is that if the pressure is not regularly lowered and still continues to rise, the container will begin to crack. That was what happened when the disease struck: the world began to crumble because the pressure of the cycle grew to be too much for it to withstand.”

It was all so logical, something she could visualise. Perhaps that was why the grief that should have accompanied the idea that everything that had happened was little more than a cosmic experiment did not overwhelm her the way she had expected for it to do, Zelda instead finding herself able to focus on nothing but the idea of regarding it all as little more than a matter of pressure. Or perhaps there were simply no tears or grief left in her after those last few months. Zelda did not know the answer, and so, she made sure to focus on nothing but what Paya had just told her.

“All right.” Zelda nodded, trying her best not to look distracted as she went over what she had just been told. “Pressure in a container, right, so what we will have to do is that, rather than merely letting the pressure fall to a level the container can withstand, we… have to remove the source of it completely.” casting a glance over at Paya, Zelda was met with a smile, but also the gesture of someone telling her that they had no idea about the validity of the answer. It would have been enough to crush her only a moment ago, but now, Zelda found herself thinking aloud as she tried to see a way to get through to the other side of the question of just what they would have to do. “Okay, so if it is a container and the pressure is building, we will have to do something relatively soon, or at least we have a time limit for when the container will burst. But the source…” Zelda tapped her chin, “I don’t know what it can be. I mean, if it is a physical object, it would have to be old, with the cycle having been detailed in even the oldest written texts, but where—a museum!” the thought came from one moment to the next, Zelda leaping to her feet without thinking. “Yes, that’s it; it would have to have come from a museum, perhaps even Hyrule National Museum.” stopping for a moment to help Paya up from the ground, Zelda could feel how the exhilarating rush of chasing down the right answer made her heart beat even faster. “It would explain why we haven’t seen the Yiga Clan since then; they would most likely already be busy protecting the source of the cycle if they had found it and knew what it was.” Zelda paused, spotting a slight flaw in her plan as Paya grimaced. “Do we know if the Yiga Clan wants for the cycle to continue?”

A moment later, Zelda found herself whishing that she could have taken back the question as Paya looked like she had to fight off the urge to flinch at the mention of the Yiga Clan’s name, but she could not, not when Paya shook her head, her shoulders rising up towards her ears. “We don’t know much about them really,” she said, her voice low and shaky, “I mean, I have read that they used to be part of the Sheikah Clan a long time ago, but that they left to form their own branch over some disagreement about the use of Sheikah technology. I can’t speak for everyone though, but I know that I have no idea about what exactly they wish to achieve.”

“Okay, so we don’t know just what they are trying to do.” Zelda repeated the answer to herself, the tense feeling of frowning pulling her back to reality to look over at where Paya had resumed fidgeting with her necklace. Moving slowly, giving her every chance to step away, she reached out to place her hand on top of hers. Feeling Paya stiffen slightly, Zelda could only hope that she would not make everything worse by giving her hand a little squeeze. “I am sorry about bringing it up. I—it is clear that you don’t want to talk about it, and I promise that if I had not genuinely thought that they might be involved in the cycle or at least the answer as to what we will have to do about it, I would not have asked you about them..”

She would not have been surprised if Paya had taken a step away from her. That or brushing aside the apology would have been among the reactions Zelda had almost come to expect from her, so when Paya shook her head, moving her hand so that, rather than Zelda simply having placed her own hand on top of it, Paya returned the gesture, clasping both of her hands around Zelda’s right hand as she spoke, the only thing she could do was to stare at her.

“No, it is not that I personally feel uncomfortable when talking about the Yiga Clan, it is just…” Paya bowed her head, and for what felt like the first time since she had arrived, Zelda could see that she was avoiding her gaze, looking down at the ground as she continued. “It is difficult to explain. To be honest, I don’t even think that it is my place to explain just why we don’t talk much about the Yiga Clan here or why we care about making sure that they have no idea where we are to a point where people are willing to risk their lives for the missions.” tightening her hold on Zelda’s hand, Paya turned around and began to lead her back towards the mountain pass, back towards Kakariko Village. “Come with me. I will find the person who can explain everything to you.”

Zelda wanted to ask her who it was. As she walked along next to Paya, Paya still not having let go of her hand, the result being that they walked hand in hand, moving past the places where pieces of rock has seemingly fallen from the top of the mountains to land in the little chasm or where puddles had formed to push down parts of the ground, their hands swinging slightly between them as they moved, however, Zelda could not find the words to even begin to construct that sentence, nor did she want to. Looking at Paya as she walked there next to her, all Zelda could see was the little twitch near her eyes, the way Paya clenched her jaw as they moved at a pace that was not quite running but also not a light walk. She could not ask her, not now, not when Paya already looked like it took every last bit of strength in her not to sit down and cry over the question Zelda had already asked her.

Though Zelda could have sworn that she had run for less than a minute to get out to the lake, the journey back home ended up lasting several minutes. Zelda was not even able to pretend that it was only due to how quickly her heart beat in her chest, that the rhythm was making the seconds appear far shorter to her, since that would then also have been the case when she ran out to the lake in the first place.

At last, the gate appeared as they turned around the corner, Kakariko Village waiting just in front of them, and Zelda could almost feel how every last part of her was begging her to ask Paya where they were going. Trying her best to convince herself that she could wait for a bit longer, however, Zelda was somehow able to remain quiet as Paya led her down the main path of the little village.

That level of determination ended up lasting little more than a minute. Having expected for them to turn right at the bend of the road, when Paya instead followed it around the corner, Zelda felt how the resolution not to ask melted away, the question leaving her mouth before she was able to stop it. “Wait, aren’t we going to talk with Impa?”

The question received a short answer. “No.”

After that, they walked in silence the rest of the way, Zelda doing everything in her power to remind herself of the fact that Paya would probably have let go of her hand if she was upset that she had asked, and although it should not have changed anything, as Paya led her towards what looked like a field that had been hastily converted to some kind of training area, the fear that sat down in the pit of her stomach abated a little to instead make way for the ability to register the sound of wood against wood, the thuds occasionally punctuated by a yell or a groan, giving Zelda an idea of just where they were going even before they moved past the little group of trees that partially obstructed their view of the area.

With the way they were moving back and forth over the wooden planks that made out the flooring of the makeshift training ground, ducking and parrying while waiting for an opening to strike, it took Zelda a moment to recognise the two duellists as being Ganondorf and Link, the confusion soon giving way to disbelief that it had been there as all. After all, there was no mistaking the way Link spun, the tip of his sword almost reaching Ganondorf’s arm before he was able to bring up his weapon, the handguard being all that would have kept the sword from continuing its downward trajectory to hit his hand if it had been an actual weapon as he narrowly managed to block the stroke, stepping forwards to gain momentum for his own attack.

It was something they had done plenty of times, that much was clear from the way they would alternate between being on the defensive and moving to assume a more offensive fighting style when the other would have to move back to regain their energy for another attack. In hindsight, Zelda could see that it was something she should have expected with how they had gone out to train with Dorian almost every day since they had first arrived, but that did not make it any less captivating to stand there and watch how Ganondorf used his height to his advantage, forcing Link to stop his own attack to instead focus on not being pushed away from the centre of the fenced off platform, Dorian leaning against the fence as he watched them spar.

Zelda was able to pinpoint the exact second Ganondorf spotted her and Paya with how his reaction was abrupt and noticeable, Ganondorf going from making it seem like all that existed to him in that moment was the battle and the sword in his hand to looking over at her with wide eyes in a matter of seconds.

“Zelda?” he called out, and now, Link too turned to look over at her, lowering his sword until it hung by his side, looking more like a toy than the weapon it had resembled only a minute earlier. “Is everything all right?”

“Uh, yes!” Zelda yelled back. Why she had not thought about what it would look like to Ganondorf and Link when she would so clearly show them that she had left her lessons before that moment was beyond her, but as Ganondorf frowned slightly, already beginning to walk over to her, Zelda knew that she would have to be more convincing in her attempt at letting him know that everything really was all right, so she tried again. “Paya just told me that there was something I had to hear.” Zelda raised their clasped hands. “That’s all.”

Ganondorf did not appear to be convinced just yet, but before he got the chance to say anything, Dorian had pushed himself away from the fence and began to walk over to them. “What is going on?” he asked, already looking over at Paya. “Has something happened? Does your grandmother need me?”

A single glance at Paya’s face would have been enough to let anyone see that she did not want to say what she was about to. In a way, Zelda supposed that the feeling of warmth that bloomed in her chest as she did it nevertheless could have been pride had it not been for the fact that she was aware of the fact that she did not know her nearly well enough for it to feel like a personal victory to see her able to do that.

“No,” Paya said, shaking her head, “everything is fine. It was just that Zelda and I were discussing what she and her friends could do to put an end to the cycle, when I realised that Zelda does not know much about the Yiga Clan or our reasons for training to be able to stand a chance against them in battle, and so, I thought that, maybe, you would be able to tell her. I get if you don’t want to, though!”

It should not have felt like an attack as Paya let go of her hand to put them up in front of her, waving frantically at Dorian like that would be able to push the suggestion away, and yet it did. Looking back and forth between the two of them, there was no doubt in Zelda’s mind that no matter what exactly it was that had made Paya decide that Dorian was the only one who could tell her about the Yiga Clan, it was something deeply personal. The way Dorian was not quite able to mask his instinctive reaction to the idea, the serious expression faltering for a moment to let another one shine through, his eyes becoming shiny as he looked back towards Ganondorf and Link, was more than enough to let her know that.

Perhaps coming to the same conclusion as Zelda, Ganondorf moved over to stand next to them, propping his elbow up on the fence to join Zelda in looking at Paya and Dorian as they seemed to lead a silent conversation in hurried glances and slight nods.

“Uh, Dorian—” Ganondorf began, only to almost immediately be interrupted as Dorian let out a sigh.

“Sure, I will tell her—I will tell all three of them, in fact. If they want to be here, they need to know just what the Yiga Clan is capable of and why we have to be prepared to fight them.” he turned towards them, Link running over to join them, and as much as everything in Zelda told her that she would not wish to hear what he had to say, she could not bring herself to walk away or tell Dorian that she had changed her mind as he looked to the sky before beginning. “I know that I have not introduced you to them just yet, but perhaps they have taken care of that issue all on their own—they are good at making friends, after all, so it really would not surprise me if—” Dorian interrupted himself, but even as he shook his head, Zelda could still see the smile on his face as he continued. “I am sorry. I guess I tend to ramble while talking about my children. I… well, I don’t really talk about my family when training beginners, they—they don’t need a distracted teacher, not when they are handling weapons for the first time in their lives.”

“Children?” Link parroted, eyes widening as he seemingly missed the fact that he had just been referred to as a beginner. “Do you have children?”

“There’s no need to look so surprised!” it was clear that it had been meant as a joke, but Zelda could already hear how it fell flat the moment the words left Dorian’s mouth, an opinion that was apparently shared by Dorian as well, as he did not bother to try again. “But, yes, I have children, two, in fact. Koko and Cottla. You might have seen them around the village; Cottla really likes playing games, especially hide-and-seek.”

“Yeah,” Ganondorf nodded, “I think I saw a girl who was trying to convince Epona to play hide-and-seek with her.”

“What?” Link turned his head to the side, the swift motion making his hair fly up around his face. “When?”

Ganondorf shrugged. “A couple of days ago. Epona did not seem to mind, so I thought that it would probably be fine for me to leave her there. Besides, she looked like she really enjoyed talking with Epona, so I did not really feel like being the one to walk over to ruin that for her right then.”

“Yes, that does sound like something Cottla would do.” Dorian chuckled, a tense sound that died a moment later as he looked down at them, pain written across his face. “I… before all of this happened, we used to live in Hateno Village, just me, the girls, and my wife.” Zelda could see how Link opened his mouth, no doubt to confirm the creeping suspicion forming in her mind that they had never known about him having a family either, so she reached out, placing a hand on his arm to make Link remain silent as Dorian continued uninterrupted. “Yeah, I know, I know, you haven’t seen her around here in the village. I… listen, before I tell you this, I just want to let you know that I don’t really like to talk about this. Far too many people look at me with pity in their eyes after I tell them, and I just… it does not help. Nothing does, really. So, please, just promise me that you will not begin to walk on eggshells when around me from now on.”

Zelda had to try to speak twice before she was able to force out a sound, the fact that she already had a pretty good idea of what he was going to say lying as a rope around her chest, pressing the air out of her lungs. “Of course not.”

With a glance in her direction that made it clear that he did not quite believe them, Dorian let out a sigh. “Hmm, all right. To begin with, I need you to know I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger. I was angry and sad that there was no one willing to really teach me about how to use Sheikah technology for more offensive purposes, why it had been fashioned into phones when it could so obviously be used for more than just that. It was that kind of anger that led to me beginning to spend time with people who—uh, let’s just say that they shared my opinions. In other words, I became a member of the Yiga Clan, and—”

“The Yiga Clan?” Ganondorf pressed his hand against his mouth, but it was too late to take back the surprise in his comment. “I am sorry, I was just—I didn’t expect for you to have ever been part of that group with the way you arrived to save our lives, risking your own in the process. They certainly did not seem like someone who was facing an old teammate when they fought you.”

Dorian gave them a humourless smile. “No, of course they did not. The Yiga are merciless when it comes to betrayal and me deciding to leave them after meeting the love of my life was one they could not forgive. They waited a few years, I will give them that, but in the end, just as I had begun to delude myself into thinking that, perhaps, _perhaps_ I had made it, that maybe I would be the one who was able to keep a low enough profile for them not to remember me or bother to do anything to me to show that they did not forgive traitors. I guess that I should have known better, but I didn’t, so I wasn’t even home the day they arrived to Hateno Village.” Dorian looked down at the ground, but there was nothing he could have done to hide how he tightened his grip on his sword to a point where his knuckles turned white, the bones looking like they were going to tear through the skin. “They killed my wife. I returned home to a dead body and a note that, unless I learnt to be a loyal member of their group, my children would be the next victims. In a way, the disease came with a silver lining for my family since that was when Impa arrived to tell us about this village where the Yiga Clan would never be able to find us again. After all, I know that I would never have dared to disobey that order much less outright oppose them after that.”

In the silence that followed, the only thing Zelda could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat. It felt like the wind itself had died down, all the birds that had been chirping in the trees quieting for a moment to allow her to take in what Dorian was telling them. A dead wife. Zelda would be the first to admit to not having spent much time talking with the people of Kakariko Village, but even then, the idea that two of the children she had seen run along the paths, whispering about her but never walking over to her, could have experienced what Dorian was describing was not something she should have been able to miss so easily.

Forcing herself not to look away from Dorian, to face the discomfort head-on and take in the way his jaw clenched as he looked down as if to inspect the luminous blade of his sword, the blue glow casting deep shadows across his face, Zelda could almost see the face of the person who had jumped in through the windows of the museum, leaping into battle without a second thought to block the attacks from the Yiga Clan while she fled with Ganondorf and Link, all three of them wordlessly reaching the agreement that it was better not to look back, not to pause to try to figure out just who had arrived or whether or not they were there to protect them or to kill them before the Yiga Clan got the chance. The fact that they had compared Dorian and his group to the Yiga Clan sent bile rising up in her throat. A dead wife and they had looked at his blade and deemed it to be just as dangerous for them as the Yiga Clan.

“I am sorry,” Ganondorf said, Zelda hearing the same uncertainty about what to do in his voice as she felt inside her own body as she tried to think of something to do, something she could say to make the situation any better, “I—we had no idea that that had happened to you.”

“Don’t apologise.” Dorian’s voice was firm, almost enough to hide the way he wiped a tear away from the corner of his eyes. “It isn’t what she would have wanted. She knew exactly what the risk was when we first met. Besides, I don’t need pity, I need to continue training and training others to make sure that even if the worst were to happen, there will still be people here who will be able to defend the rest of my family until they are old enough to defend themselves.”

Zelda could only nod along. It made sense, she supposed, that he would be willing to face the Yiga Clan after everything he had been through. Making sure that she swallowed back the apology, Zelda took a step forwards before she too tried to fill the awkward silence that hung in the air between them with at least some kind of acknowledgement of what he had lost. “Dorian, I just want you to know that as soon as we know what we will have to do to—to make sure that something like the disease will never happen again, we will try our best to avenge your wife and make the Yiga Clan pay for what they did to her. You and your children should not have to fear them, and we will make sure that you will never have to again.”

She would have expected for Dorian to frown at her, the question of just what she was thinking that she could achieve alongside Ganondorf and Link, what a teenager was thinking that she and two people who had been training for only about a weak would be able to do when faced with an entire clan of people who seemed to have dedicated themselves to their cause for years, being the one she had thought she would be confronted with. However, as Dorian shifted his weight to the side, the blade retracting into the hilt of his sword, what she saw was not the puzzled expression of someone who was not quite sure if she was sincere or merely trying to console him, but rather something akin to heartbreak as Dorian shook his head.

“I don’t want that,” he said, and despite his voice having become a mumble, Zelda knew that both Ganondorf and Link heard him as well, “I wasted too much of my life being angry at the world for everything it had done to wrong me. For the first couple of weeks after my wife’s death, I could barely face my children and Cottla’s questions of when her mum would be home, and do you know who suffered for that? My children and I did. It wasn’t the Yiga Clan who paid the price for all the nights I spent trying to track them down to make them pay for what they had done to my family, it was me. I was the one who missed out on my children’s life by trying to change what could not be changed, and I was the one who had to miss Koko’s birthday and come home to find them crying in the middle of a dead village to realise that I had more important things in my life than the need for revenge.”

Zelda fell silent, the question of how he could not hate the Yiga Clan and everything they had done dying in her throat.

Instead, Link was the one to speak. Mirroring Ganondorf’s stance as he leant against the fence, it could hardly have been more apparent how he did not wish to ask the question, Zelda seeing how he had to try multiple times before being able to force it out. “Dorian, I get that it is not my place to ask this, but… when you came to save us, back in Clock Town, I mean, how…?”

“How was I able to keep myself from trying to pursue the Yiga Clan, you mean?”

Link nodded. “Something like that, yes.”

With a sigh, Dorian sat down on the ground. “It is as I said: my wife is dead. Nothing I can say or do will ever be able to change that. But my children are still alive and well. I have a responsibility to them and to Impa for having saved us from Hateno Village to ensure that this village is safe—I confronted them in the museum because Impa had explicitly told me that if I were to see three people there, they were the ones we had been waiting for, but I still knew that I had to be careful not to make my children lose their dad as well. Do you understand?”

His eyes passing over all of them, Zelda could not quite ignore the feeling that he looked at her for far longer than he did with the two others, looking at her like he was expecting for it to tell her something, for Zelda to nod her head and say that she understood.

Maybe another person would have been able to do that without lying. If she were to look over at Paya, Zelda was sure that she would have been met with exactly the reaction Dorian wished to see. In fact, she only had to glance over at Ganondorf to see how he looked at Dorian, a distant expression on his face letting her know that he was thinking about what they had just been told. But for as much as she wanted to mirror their reactions and let Dorian know that she was able to think of something other than what it must have felt like for Koko and Cottla to first lose their mother and have their father leave them behind as he tried to track down her murderers, their entire village dying around them while he was gone, she could not. She could not stop seeing the glint of the sunlight reflected in the Yiga Clan’s weapons, just as she could not stop picturing the two children who had stood by one of the trees in the village, giggling to themselves as they pointed towards her.

“But why?” it was not until everyone turned towards her that Zelda realised that she had been the one to ask the question. Clearing her throat, already knowing that it would do nothing to change the way her tone of voice rose throughout the sentence Zelda tried again. “How can you be so calm about all of that? I know that it is not the same, but every time I think about what happened back when the disease struck and how there was nothing any of us could do to stop it from taking everything from us, all I want is to confront whoever was responsible for it. How can you be so calm when you talk about the people who killed your wife? How can you stand here and say that you don’t want to rush out to get revenge and destroy their lives just like they destroyed yours?”

For a moment, Zelda was convinced that Dorian would tell her that she had to grow up, become less childish and face the fact that, sometimes, the world was not a just place. It certainly seemed like that was what he would tell her as he crouched down slightly, bringing himself down to the level of her eyes, Zelda having to blink furiously to continue seeing him rather than how her father would have done the same thing, placing a hand on the dining table rather than the fence but nevertheless looking just as Dorian did. It was that, the too soft voice making it sound like he was talking to someone far younger than her, or Dorian’s voice becoming icy when he would tell her that she had no right to judge his way of talking about his past, Zelda knew that.

However, rather than continuing like her father would have done, Dorian simply tilted his head to the side, a look that was not quite pity nor annoyance at the question being all she could see in his eyes as he spoke. “Zelda, I am not calm. Trust me, for the longest time, I was so full of rage every time I would think about what had happened that I could barely stand to look at myself or my children. Even now, I admit that there are times where I wish death upon the people responsible for my wife’s murder. It is a matter of me realising that I have an obligation to my children to be a good father for them, and part of that is that I have to not only keep myself from needlessly rushing out to get myself killed in a misguided attempt at making the Yiga Clan pay, I also have to show them that there is another way to handle what has happened, that we cannot use revenge as a guide for our actions. I will never forgive the Yiga Clan for what they did, but I had to recognise the fact that I would have to find something other than the rage to live for, and, in the end, my children became that thing. Do you understand what I am saying?” Dorian placed a hand on her shoulder, but unlike what Zelda would have expected, she did not have to suppress any instinctive urge to shove it off, just as she did not have to continuously remind herself that he was not her father, that he was not about to tell her that she had to try harder, had to try again until she would excel. “Blind rage would not have got me anywhere. The only thing it would have achieved is the destruction of the rest of my family. I had to focus on the fact that I still had my children and that I wanted to make the world safe for them rather than the part of me that still wished to kill the Yiga Clan to avenge my wife.”

Distantly, Zelda could see that Dorian stepped away from her, turning to answer some question Ganondorf had just asked, but it was as if she was watching it though a thick layer of fog, not quite hearing what they were saying as she tried to fit in everything Dorian had just told them with what she knew about the world.

Her father was dead. That much, she could not change. Even if she were to somehow find the goddess or demon responsible for the cycle, even if she were to somehow reach out towards the spirit realm to find the princess who had allowed for everyone around Zelda to pay the price for her attempts at keeping her own time safe and out of reach of the destruction of the cycle, he would still be dead. Urbosa was not going to come back to pull her in for a hug and tell her that she had done her best and that that was all anyone could demand from her, both of them silently choosing to ignore the fact that they knew that that was not an opinion Zelda’s father would share, no matter how many times Zelda would beg Impa to let her know where she was making mistakes in her attempts at manifesting her powers, having to struggle to keep back the tears as she looked at her, knowing that Impa was aware of just what was wrong with her but simply refused to tell her the exact details, giving her something she could change, instead coming with vague statements about Zelda having to find the answer for herself.

The dots connected in an instant, and Zelda supposed that she would have been relieved that no one was really paying attention to her if it had not been for the fact that, in that very moment, all that mattered was the fact that she had to go and find Impa immediately, for she felt the realisation show as almost a physical change, her posture becoming a bit straighter as she looked over towards where Ganondorf and Link had pulled Dorian in for a hug.

Hearing Ganondorf tell him that they too would make sure that they would be able to help defend the village from harm, Zelda knew exactly what she had to do.

+++

Throwing open the doors to Impa’s house, Zelda was met with the sight of Impa already sitting on the dais, facing the door, an expression on her face that did not show any surprise at the fact that she was back there again. Maybe that really was the case. Perhaps Impa had always known that the moment where Zelda would find herself understanding why she had acted the way she had would come, maybe she had known from the moment Zelda had turned around on her heel to sprint away from her that there was no need to worry about whether or not she would return back home to her again. Looking over at her and the way Impa sent her a small smile, acknowledging her presence with a curt nod, Zelda would not have been surprised at all if that was the case.

The doors closed behind her with a thud, and, taking a step forwards, Zelda was at once aware of the fact that she had run away without a word, without stopping to tell her that she would have to take a break. The distance between her and Impa was not great, but the few seconds it took for her to cross it and sit down next to Impa was still more than enough for Zelda to feel how the regret and guilt began to build up in her chest.

Still, she had not sprinted through the village to turn back now, so, without giving herself another second to talk herself out of doing what had to be done, Zelda forced herself to stop thinking about how she would explain what had happened, instead doing it before she would lose her courage. “Impa, I… I was talking with Dorian just now, and he…” Zelda swallowed, “he told us about his wife.”

There was no trace of surprise to be found in Impa’s eyes as she looked over at her, the metal ornaments clattering slightly as she nodded at her. “Ah, yes, I suppose I should have known that that would happen sooner or later. I take it that you had not had any idea about it before he told you?”

There should have been guilt curling up in her stomach as Zelda shook her head, a suspicion that Impa was trying to tell her that she should have paid more attention to the rest of the village, but all Zelda could do was to shake her head. “No, I had no idea about any of that. Uh, I, well, I think that I realised what you were trying to make me see, though—back when he told us about his family, I mean. The reason I could not access my powers, it was not because I didn’t have them or was inherently unable to use them, was it? Instead, it was because I wanted to use them for all the wrong reasons.”

Zelda could see that she had found the correct explanation from the way Impa leant forwards, but she still stayed quiet as Impa bowed her head at her, an expression not unlike a smile making her eyes light up. “And then what do you think the right way to go about reaching your powers would be?”

For once, Zelda was able to answer one of her questions without hesitation. “To try to remember the people I want to protect rather than those I want to be able to fight. I… I think that I have to focus on everyone that I love rather than the anger and hurt that followed … well, just about everything that happened before Ganondorf, Link, and I were brought to this village.”

Impa was quiet for several seconds after that, but just as Zelda was able to acknowledge the fact that, just a day ago, she would have taken it as a tacit way of letting her know that she was wrong, there was nothing about it that made Zelda have to force herself to sit still, not to run out of the door the way she knew she would have done before.

Finally, Impa sent her a genuine smile, the expression making her look younger, Zelda almost believing that she could see a symbol not unlike the Sheikah eye and teardrop painted around her eye as she blinked at her. “I think that you have understood it as well, my friend. For now, you should rest and try to find the energy to continue your training. Then, we will resume our attempts at reaching out toward the spirit world first thing tomorrow. Is that all right, my dear?”

Before Zelda got the chance to answer, the door was thrown open, Ganondorf and Link rushing into the house. Ganondorf seemed to be the first out of them to realise that they had just interrupted a conversation, reaching out to grab onto Link’s sleeve as he came to a sudden halt before glancing back and forth between Zelda and Impa. “Sorry, uh, I didn’t know that you were here, Zelda,” he said, still with a wide grin on his face that was only partially dimmed as he took a step back, hesitating halfway through the motion, “I hope that we didn’t interrupt you two.”

“You can relax, my friend. Zelda was just about to tell me that she has made a breakthrough in regards to her training, a fact I am sure she would love to share with the two of you as well.”

“A breakthrough?” Zelda saw Ganondorf’s eyebrows rise, the implicit insult that could perhaps have been found in his surprise mitigated by his smile. “Zelda, that is amazing!”

The next thing she knew, Zelda found herself enveloped in a crushing hug. Taking in the familiar sight of Ganondorf’s red hair as it filled her field of vision, Zelda was barely able to look to the side and see how Link too had joined the hug, the combined weight of all three of them almost bringing them out of balance, making Ganondorf have to step back and let go of them.

Still with a smile on his face, he turned towards Impa, Link mirroring his behaviour as Ganondorf gestured towards a point between her and Zelda. “What is this breakthrough exactly, if you don’t mind me asking?”

The question, though directed towards Impa, was immediately sent over to land in front of Zelda as both Ganondorf, Link, and Impa turned towards her. Feeling how the pride made her stand up straight, keeping her chin slightly raised, Zelda met their gazes. “I think I have figured out the kind of, well, I guess you could call it mind-set that I need to have if I want to be able to access my powers, that being angry at the world is not going to get me very far and that it would be better to focus on what I still have left.”

“You mean like—” Link interrupted himself, but with the way he cast a glance out of the windows, Zelda knew what he would have said.

“Yes,” she said, “like Dorian.”

“Oh.” Link was silent for a second before looking back over at her, and though she could see his attempt at hiding it, it was clear how his smile was slightly more fragile than before, not quite reaching his eyes anymore. “Yeah, I suppose that would be a good idea—focusing on what we still have left, I mean. Uh…” as he hesitated again, Zelda saw how she was no longer the only one catching onto the fact that he seemed to struggle to figure out what to say, Ganondorf’s frown confirming the thought that no matter what might be distracting him, it was not something he had decided to share with him either as Link appeared to find the strength to put on a wide smile that seemed only a little less strained than the first before continuing. “In that case, I am proud of you, Zelda. Really proud of you, in fact.”

It was far too early to congratulate her on anything or act like she had actually accessed her magic. Zelda was aware of that, but even then, as Ganondorf slung his arm around her shoulders to pull her in for another hug, she did not bother to tell them that she still had yet to achieve any kind of substantial results. Besides, and perhaps it was only her own wishful thinking that spoke, but as Zelda spotted the door being pushed open and Paya stepping into the room, sending her a small smile when Zelda leant to the side to catch a glimpse of her, it felt almost like she was already halfway there.

+++

“Zelda? Are you awake?”

The sun had set hours ago, leaving the room in darkness, but Zelda still pressed her elbow into the mattress to push herself up as Paya’s voice broke through the silence. If she squinted, she was almost able to make out the outline of how Paya did the same, looking at her from her bed across the room.

“Yes,” Zelda answered, breathing out the answer to make sure that they would not accidentally wake up Impa. Though she still had yet to discover just where she slept, part of Zelda was willing to bet that it would be somewhere downstairs, and for as much as she was sure that Impa would not mind the two of them discussing what had just happened, for her to be outright happy to be woken up by their conversation still felt a little too hopeful, “I am awake.”

Fabric rustled, the noise soon followed by the sound of bare feet moving across a floor, moving quickly and lightly to avoid the spots Zelda was already beginning to identify as the sources of the creaking noise, and a moment later, Paya was standing by her bed, looking down at her as Zelda hurried to fully push herself up from the mattress, sitting with her legs hanging over the edge before patting the spot next to her. The bed dipped slightly as Paya accepted the invitation, pushing the blanket aside as she did so.

Then, looking over at her, Paya leant in, pausing when she was just close enough to be able to whisper to her without risking anyone being able to overhear. “I just wanted to tell you that I know that my grandmother was impressed with you today, even if she might not necessarily have shown it.”

With how Impa had smiled at her before letting her know that they could now properly begin her training, Zelda found it hard to bridge her own recollection of their conversation with what Paya was telling her, but, nonetheless, she bowed her head, making sure to keep her voice down as she whispered back. “Thank you. I have to admit, though, that I really had no idea that I would ever be able to do that—to see that I had been thinking of what my powers could do for me in a completely wrong way, I mean.”

“You say that, but I know that my grandmother has always believed in you.” Paya’s breath tickled her ear as she paused for a moment before adding. “You know, even before you came here—and Ganondorf and Link as well, of course —she used to tell us about how we would have to wait for the three chosen ones to arrive, that they would possess the power to bring an end to the reason the disease had appeared in the first place. She didn’t tell us about the cycles, but still, it was more than enough to let us know that there were people out there who would arrive soon to help the world heal again, and although I doubt that any of us had expected for it to take weeks for you to come here, there was still this feeling of hope that accompanied the fact that we had reason to believe that you would arrive. I think that the reason we felt it so strongly was due to the fact that my grandmother always talked about it like it was inevitable. Zelda, I know that you felt like it was not going well before today, but I promise you that she never gave up on you, that she always knew that you would figure out a way to reach your powers.” even in the darkness, Paya’s eyes shone as she leant in towards her, resting her head against Zelda’s shoulder as she fell silent.

Looking out into the darkness, Zelda could feel how Paya’s breathing had quickened, and if there had been even a tiny bit of sunlight in the room, she was sure that she could have looked down at her to see a blush spread across her cheeks. But Zelda did not do any of that. Instead, she reached out to wrap her arm around Paya’s shoulders, moving just a tiny bit closer to her. She did not need to look down to know that Paya was smiling at her, nor did she need to assure herself that she was not making up everything, that she was not reading into things that weren’t there in the first place. It was not a matter of her wishing for things to be a way and then interpreting them as such, not anymore, Zelda was certain of that, so for as much as her voice should have trembled just as it had done when she had tried to talk with her father about the fact that she was not interested in politics the same way he was only for him to brush it off with a reminder of their family’s history, Zelda heard the question fill the darkness with a certainty that would have made her suspect that someone else had said it for her only a day ago.

“It is not just Impa who thinks that, is it?”

The answer came promptly, Zelda feeling how Paya lifted her head ever so slightly from her shoulder to look up at her. “No,” she admitted, “no, I believe in you as well.”

There was no grand declaration, only Zelda leaning back against the wall, Paya following along, the two of them looking out into the darkness, until, at some point, they fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we have a moment of Zelda being able to somewhat communicate with the people around her, resulting in her being able to find a bit of hope, even if only for a moment.


	16. Chapter 16

Waking up to find that, sometime during the night, they must have fallen to the side, the result being that, rather than waking up in the same position they had fallen asleep in, the two of them sitting with their backs against the wall, they were lying halfway in Zelda’s bed, halfway on the floor, Zelda already knowing that it would take a while to remove the stiffness of having fallen asleep with her legs hanging over the edge of her bed but finding it difficult to focus on the ache rather than the fact that Paya had snuggled her head into her neck, lying on her shoulder more than the pillow, should perhaps have been weirder to them than it was. It should have resulted in stuttering and an attempt at quickly moving away from each other, but for as much as Zelda could not pretend not to notice how Paya’s eyes widened for a moment after waking up, quickly looking down at her before moving to sit up, it did not change the fact that Paya did not move away to run down the stairs immediately after waking up the way she had done for the past week. Instead, she paused as she pushed herself off the bed to look back down at her, the smile on her lips far outshining the uncertain look in her eyes.

They did not talk about it though. It was not that they did not have every chance to do so, Paya pulling out a stack of clothes from her wardrobe, leaving half of it next to Zelda’s bed, the two of them hurrying to change from their pyjamas without uttering a word to one another, and as Zelda pulled the tunic over her head, she would not have been able to name a specific reason for not turning around to try to talk with Paya about what had happened. They simply did not talk about it.

That reason came to her as they ate breakfast, however, Paya taking her plate to sit down next to her, Zelda pretending that she did not notice the looks Ganondorf and Link sent her, the two of them making it obvious that they noticed how Paya had taken Ganondorf’s spot, leaving Ganondorf to sit on the opposite side of Link, the two of them seemingly leading a silent conversation that continued throughout the entirety of the meal, one that consisted entirely of meaningful looks. It was easier that way. Not having to name what had happened between them meant that she could eat her slice of bread in peace, feeling how the proximity to Paya meant that their arms brushed against each other every time Zelda did not outright focus on keeping it from happening, without having to ask herself what she would do if it were to end the same way as everything other thing in her life had done.

So they did not mention it, not to each other and certainly not to Ganondorf, Link, or Impa, Just as they made no attempts at bringing it up, Impa looking from Paya and over at Zelda as she informed them of the fact that Dorian was already waiting for them at the training grounds and that she had thought of a way for Zelda to try to gain a better understanding of the spirit world.

A couple of times as they walked over to the little spot between the hills that Zelda had almost come to regard as being her version of the fenced off training area, it looked like she was about to mention it, Zelda seeing the long looks she sent her. Each time, however, Impa would ultimately look away from her again, but Zelda could still feel how it hung above them as something unsaid as Impa gestured for her to sit down next to her in the spot that allowed them to look out over Hyrule and see both the cliffs that hid the Zora’s Domain from view as well as the Gerudo Highlands.

“So,” Impa said, breaking the silence. Zelda could feel her gaze on her as she continued to look out over Hyrule, “I take it that you have perhaps found yet another person you want to protect.”

“I… I think so.” it was not a thought that Zelda had really considered until that very moment, but as the words left her mouth, she knew that it was true, the realisation making her nod, the movement meant more for herself than for Impa. “Yes, I have.”

Zelda could see how Impa was smiling at her even as she continued to stare straight ahead, taking in the sight of how the trees were slowly beginning the process of becoming orange. “Good. I am happy to hear that. I—you hardly need to hear this from me as I am sure that she has already made it clear to you, but I can tell you that I know that Paya feels the same way.”

It should not have changed anything, and still, Zelda felt a strange sense of warmth bloom in her chest as she looked at the little splotches of orange and yellow among the green colours of the forest that separated them from Hyrule Castle Town. Autumn was approaching, but right then, Zelda could not bring herself to truly begin to worry about what it would mean for them, whether or not it left them with enough time to prepare for winter.

They sat in silence for another couple of minutes before Impa clasped her hands together. The change was barely noticeable, but Zelda still felt how the moment had passed, that now, they had begun her training, as she looked over at Impa.

“Zelda,” Impa began, “what I want you to keep in mind as we begin to try these different methods of allowing you to better access your powers, is that they are yours. Your abilities belong to you and any decision you make about what to use them for will be your choice and not the choice of some past goddess or princess. Do you understand?”

Zelda nodded. “Yeah, I have to figure out how to do it on my own without trying to emulate the legends, right?”

Impa sent her a long look before nodding. “Something like that, yes. Are you ready?”

And with that began a day full of hope that would gradually dwindle. It was not that it did not work at all; Zelda did notice that she found it easier to listen to the voices from the spirit realm when she as not pushing herself to try to forget about what her father would have said if he could have witnessed the numerous attempts that all ended in failure, but even with the improvement, the voices were still barely more than a gentle murmur that could easily be drowned out by the sound of the wind around her as Zelda closed her eyes. Somewhere, just outside the realm of her own consciousness, she was sure that she could feel something, a gentle warmth that had to be a sign of her powers waiting for her with the alluring feeling of coming home, as she tried to reach out, only to find that she was not quite able to bridge the gap. Still, Zelda kept her eyes closed, trying to keep herself distracted from the tension that built between her brows as she made another attempt, drowning out the sound of Impa telling her to take her time in the background.

And she took her time. Zelda was not aware of every passing second, a fact she should perhaps have thanked the goddesses for, for she was certain that she would not have been able to continue trying if that had been the case, but she did see how the intensity of what little light she could not block out changed as the sun moved across the sky and feel how Impa moved next to her, rising to her feet a couple of times to move around before coming back to join her once more. And yet, her attempts yielded no results other than letting her know that the powers were indeed there, that it was all a matter of her not being able to fully reach them.

It was with the sensation of having just broken through the surface of the ocean, gasping for breath, that Zelda opened her eyes again to see that the sun had reached its apex, already beginning its descent, sending light down upon them as she shook her head. “I am not giving up, Impa,” she said, “but I don’t feel anything—or, rather, I can see that it is there, I just can’t quite grasp it. I can see the power and how it is just out of reach, but I cannot figure out how to get to it.” brushing a stray strand of hair back behind her ear, Zelda squared her shoulders. “But don’t worry; I am not going to give up, not even if reaching it is going to take me all night.”

Zelda had only just closed her eyes when Impa placed a hand on her shoulder, bringing an end to the attempt at reaching out again before it had begun.

Even as Zelda sat there, looking over at Impa as she rose from the ground, she was still almost taller than her. Really, there was no reason—at least not one Zelda would have been able to put into words—that could explain just why Impa appeared taller than before as she looked up at her, the sun haloing her head as she proffered her hand, gesturing for Zelda to follow her.

Zelda did so without thinking, Impa pulling her up from the ground with a surprising amount of strength, considering her age.

“I think,” Impa said, already having redirected her attention from Zelda to the landscape in front of them, “that we should try a new tactic—”

“But did we not just agree that I would be able to reach my powers sooner or later if we just continued with this way of training?” the question left Zelda’s mouth before she had even realised it. By the time she had said it, it was already far too late for her to stop herself from interrupting Impa, but Zelda still reached up to cover her mouth with her hand.

Thankfully, Impa did not appear to be too annoyed, shaking her head at her with an expression that could hardly have made it clearer that it was not the interruption itself the motion was directed towards. “I did say that it would be a way to, eventually, access your powers. However, I fear that we might not have as much time as I had hoped we would have, so we might have to explore other ways of granting you access to your magic faster.” stepping forwards, Impa began to walk back in the direction of the village, moving at a pace that only barely allowed Zelda to run to catch up with her, following along next to her as Impa spoke without leaving a single pause for Zelda to ask what she had meant by that. “Zelda, in the woods just behind this village, there is a—a sacred fountain, if you will, that I think might help you find the path to your abilities faster than you would have on your own.”

“So are we going to go there now?” Zelda hurried to interject, only for Impa to brush it aside like it was a question that had not needed to be asked.

“No. It is quite a journey, especially for me.” turning around the corner, Impa did not slow down at all, making Zelda doubt that statement but still remain quiet as Impa added. “Especially with how it is already past noon, I doubt that we would be able to make the journey out there and back home in a day. If you go and see how Ganondorf and Link are doing with Dorian, then I will make sure to pack supplies for us to make the journey and then come find you once I am ready. Do you understand the plan?”

It did not seem like it would have mattered if she had said no, for, without giving Zelda more than a second to try to understand what she had just said, Impa ran up the stairs to her house, leaving Zelda behind to look after her, the image of Impa almost appearing to blur along the edges, two alternating figures moving in her place, on that looked a bit like her, small and bowed, and another that was so unlike Impa that, had it not been for the silhouette bleeding into the other, Zelda would not have believed that they had once been the same person at all. But they had to be. She could see no other explanation for what had happened, not as Impa reached the end of the stairs and certainly not as she pulled open the heavy wooden door in one, smooth motion to disappear into the house.

The sound of the door falling shut was what forced Zelda back to reality, making her startle slightly as she pivoted around. There was something about the way Impa had acted, how quickly it had all happened, Zelda sitting next to the gravestones one moment, trying her best to reach out towards the powers she did not quite have the words to describe but knew with a crushing sense of certainty she would need, only for Impa to all but drag her back to the village the next. She had said that they were running out of time, that it looked like they would have to change tactics, and from how quickly it had all happened, Zelda would dare to say that it was not something she had planned from the beginning of the day, but rather a thought that had struck her mere moments before she had ordered Zelda to stop. But still, that left Zelda with the question of why. Why did it happen in that moment, why would she bring an end to Zelda’s attempts at reaching her powers when she had only just begun to find hope that she would be able to break through the barrier separating her from the abilities she should have received alongside her destiny and place in the cycle? What had changed in those moments where she had done everything in her power to block out the world around her to instead reach out?

Zelda could not think of any answers to any of her questions, but as the seconds passed and Impa did not return, Zelda found her feet carrying her towards the training grounds almost without her having to think about it.

As the village passed by her, Zelda could not help but take in the way the people around her stopped to look towards her as she walked by, but for the first time, she was able to look at them and hear Paya’s voice rather than her father’s. Maybe they really did believe in her. It should have been a laughable thought, but, walking past a vegetable patch, wondering to herself who the man sitting on the ground was, only for Steen to look up at her, sending her a short nod before returning to his task of tending to what Zelda decided had to be carrots, it did not feel like a joke the way it had done the first time Paya had tried to convince her of that being the truth, especially as Zelda saw Steen’s reaction to her walking him past mirrored by the other people who noticed her.

Despite the worry still clinging to her soul, as Zelda reached the training grounds, she could feel how she walked with a spring in her pace, one that soon changed to match the rhythm of the clatter of swords and yells as she walked over to the training grounds.

The moment Zelda walked past the little group of trees obstructing her view of the arena, she could see what had changed since the last time she had visited Ganondorf and Link during their training. Where they had used wooden swords only the day before, the purple bruises Link had showed them assuring Zelda that, for as much as it no doubt hurt to be hit, that was the extent of the damage the weapons could inflict when not used to seriously injure an opponent, now, the collision of weapons was accompanied by a metallic twang, sparks flying as Zelda watched Ganondorf struggle to hold onto his weapon as he narrowly managed to dodge Link’s attack by rolling to the side, using his own sword to block before Link would have got the chance to finish the downward motion. Still, even as Zelda knew that she should have looked to Dorian to ask him if it was really safe for them to fight with real weapons, she could only watch as Ganondorf feinted left, Link instantly raising his sword to block an attack in a move that should not have come with the sensation of having seen it before, only for Ganondorf to move right. As Link’s movements blurred, the blade becoming a line of grey as he swung it to the side, knocking Ganondorf’s sword aside before spinning around, pulling the weapon out of Ganondorf’s grasp, Zelda was able to place the reason for why the sword had looked familiar. Gasping for breath, Link finally stood still, a fact that allowed for Zelda to look down and see the purple and blue that twisted around the hilt of the sword. The Master Sword.

She must not have been able to remain as unnoticed as she had hoped to, for the next moment, Zelda saw how Link turned his head, the exhaustion on his face giving way to a smile as he looked back over his shoulder towards where Ganondorf stood with his hands on his knees, the sword already on the ground. “Hey, Gan, Zelda’s here!”

“Huh?” Ganondorf looked up, and now, Zelda could recognise the result of a week of near constant training, for even though she had seen both of look like they were moments away from collapsing to the ground a few moments ago, both Ganondorf and Link ran over to her, Link placing a hand on top of one of the posts, swinging his legs over the fence in one, fluid movement, landing on the other side with a light thud.

Zelda heard how it earned him a light-hearted ‘show-off’ from Ganondorf, Link simply looking back at him for a moment to stick out his tongue before facing her again. “Is everything all right, Zelda? Did—how did it go with you and Impa?”

Zelda could hear how he tried not to ask the question that had no doubt gone through both his and Ganondorf’s minds the moment they had spotted her, whether or not she had given up the same way she had done the day before, whether she had been able to do anything with her revelation. He could have done everything in the world to hide it, and it would still have been clear, so even though the fact that Link was not able to hide the concern in his eyes did not exactly help with her worries, Zelda could not blame him for it as she forced a smile onto her face, taking a moment to wave at Dorian as he walked over to join them at the fencepost.

“Yeah, it went—not great, exactly. I still haven’t figured out just how to manifest my powers, but it was not a disaster either, so to answer your question, no, I have not run away from her this time, not that I can blame you for considering the possibility of that having happened.”

As Link raised his hands, still smiling through the apology, Ganondorf leant in over the fence, frowning slightly. “So are you saying that Impa told you to come over here?”

Casting a glance in Dorian’s direction, Zelda nodded. “Yes, she did. Apparently, she thought that we would have to change tactic—she told me something about there being some sort of fountain in the woods around here, but that, since it was not a journey that we could make in time to be back home before it would get dark, she would have to pack supplies, leaving me to go to see how the two of you were doing in the meantime. So,” pushing the worry about just what Impa had meant by them running out of time aside, forcing herself not to burden her friends with it if she would not even have been able to explain to them what it meant, Zelda cocked her head, “how are the two of you doing?”

All three of them spoke at once.

“I think I am doing pretty good, though my attacks could be better coordinated—”

“Well, Link is still better at dodging than I am—”

However, it was Dorian who was able to drown out their voices to make himself heard as he answered the question, mirroring her stance, leaning against the fencepost and tilting his head. “Why don’t you experience that for yourself?”

Zelda was not tired the way she used to be, but it still took her a couple of seconds after Ganondorf let out a little, surprised squeak to realise what he was asking her. Then, however, Zelda would be the first to admit that her own squeak was far higher in pitch than Ganondorf’s. “What, you mean a duel?”

“Well,” Dorian smiled at her, “we don’t really call them duels anymore—I doubt that anyone has really referred to them like that since the second civil war—but if you meant a little training match between the three of you, then, yeah, that was exactly what I was thinking.”

Before Zelda got the chance to inform him about the obvious flaw to his plan, the fact that, where Ganondorf and Link had been training with him for days now, she had spent her days sitting still as she tried her best to reach out for some unknown ability, Ganondorf had already started speaking. Moving closer to the fence, Zelda saw how his grip on the post became tighter, his voice sounding strained as he looked over at Dorian, Zelda noting the way he sent a quick glance towards Link, the two of them seemingly reaching a conclusion to a question she did not know if the tiny nod Link sent his way was any indication, Ganondorf hesitating for another moment before turning towards Dorian once again. “But she does not have any experience with swords! What if she gets hurt, what if—”

Dorian interrupted him just as Zelda reached out to place her hand on top of his only to see that it had the exact opposite effect than what she had intended, Ganondorf looking down at her with something in his eyes that almost resembled fear as Dorian shook his head. “I was not thinking that we would begin her training by giving her or any of you two permission to use actual swords.” either missing how Ganondorf did not look convinced at all or simply deciding that he would end up agreeing with him, Dorian turned to face Zelda. “Instead, you would get a wooden sword, as would the two of them. It will hurt if you get hit, sometimes a lot, and it can leave bruises, but it will not kill you as easily as a real weapon can do if your opponent does not see you failing to block a stroke in time. So, what do you say? Do you want to try?”

It was not proper. Zelda could already see the expression her father would have made if he could have seen her, how he would have berated her for even considering it, finding everything about the offer, from the risk of injuries to the fact that it was hardly behaviour suitable for a politician and not at all for the image she needed to project onto the world, entirely unacceptable. So, of course, she said yes, trying her best to let the apology in her smile to Ganondorf seem real as she accepted the hand Dorian offered her to help her jump over the fence, Link cheering behind her as the sound of a light thud told her that he too had gone back into the arena.

Gesturing for them to split up, Ganondorf and Zelda heading towards one side of the fenced off area and Link walking over to the other, Dorian picked up three wooden swords from the ground, Zelda getting a distinct feeling that Ganondorf and Link would have been able to repeat everything he said in their sleep as Dorian handed out the weapons along with the rules for the duel. “All right, everyone, the rules for this match are as follows: one, if you think that you are about to injure your opponent, _do not_ go through with an attack. I want you to get a sense of what it feels like to be in a battle, not for you to break a bone. Two, if you feel like giving up, do so, but only if you mean it. Three, I will decide when a hit is one that would have ended the battle in real life and, as such, I also determine who the winner is. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Link and Ganondorf chorused, Zelda joining in a moment later.

Dorian moved back to lean against the fence again, Zelda seeing how he failed to fully suppress a smile as he nodded. “Okay then. You may begin.”

The change was instantaneous. Before Zelda had got a chance to do more than look down at the sword in her hand and lift it to try to get a sense of its weight, both Ganondorf and Link had already rushed towards each other, their weapons clashing as they met in the centre of the arena. Hearing how Dorian called out her name, no doubt to follow it up with an attempt at encouraging her to move closer to the battle itself, Zelda took a step forwards, trying her best to remember everything she had seen Ganondorf and Link do, lowering her centre of gravity, hoping that it would help her defend herself against a possible attempt at making her lose her balance, as she began to circle around where Ganondorf and Link had begun a series of, to Zelda, impressive strokes and feints. The wooden sword was nothing like the Zora spear, and although Zelda knew that, with how old the spear must have been, she should perhaps have found it harder to fight with than a sword that looked almost like something that could have been meant for children, she struggled to get a proper grasp on the handle, constantly feeling how it was about to slip out of her grasp.

“Ganondorf, Link! Focus on Zelda as well, she is just standing there!”

The order from Dorian was all it took for Zelda to find herself face to face with the fact that, while she had not spent the last week training every day, her friends had.

Really, the battle was over before it had even truly began, Link and Ganondorf each hesitating for little more than a fraction of a second before they began the attack. Once they did, it was over in moments, Zelda soon finding herself struggling to make out just who was attacking her, every little bit of her attention already taken up by the desperate attempts at blocking the attacks. There were no feints, or at least Zelda was not able to notice it if Ganondorf and Link tried to trick her into thinking that they would attack from another side than they really were, nor did Zelda think that there would have been any need for them to utilise any kind of tactic. With how difficult it already was for her to keep track of two opponents when they were doing nothing other than continuing a steady barrage of attacks, Zelda was not able to tell whether or not a feint would have worked at all or if she would have missed it amidst her struggle not to let a stroke hit her. As she was forced to step back, already knowing that she would soon find herself with her back against the fence, Zelda could hear Dorian try to give her advice from his spot outside the arena, but for as much as she knew that she needed any kind of help that she could get, Zelda was not able to make out what he was saying. It could not have been more than a minute since they had started, but it already felt like the fight had lasted for hours, sweat beginning to run down Zelda’s forehead as strands of hair moved to hang down in front of her eyes.

That was when it happened, the sweat and hair in her eyes combining with the fact that she had forgot everything she had ever known about the art of fencing the moment Ganondorf and Link remembered her presence. Even as Zelda saw the sword come towards her, saw how Link had spun around, putting further momentum into the swinging gesture, she could only barely manage to bring up her own sword in time, stopping him from hitting her directly, but still finding herself stumbling to the side, the ground flying up to greet her as she lost her balance.

Barely managing to keep herself from hitting her head against the ground, instead softening her fall a little by letting her hands get the worst scrapes, Zelda let sword remain sword, instead hurrying to crawl away from the fight as Ganondorf and Link turned their attention towards one another now that she was no longer there to have Dorian yell at them to remember her.

If Zelda had thought that the fight had been intense before, both when she had watched the two of them spar on their own and when she had joined, the fight became quick as lightning the moment she was no longer part of it.

With movements that only increased in speed and intensity, Ganondorf and Link moved along the edge of the arena, alternating between moving forwards, trying to force the other to surrender or move away, only for the other to respond with another series of attacks, each of them looking like they should have been the winning blow. And still, they kept on fighting, Ganondorf pushing forwards, forcing Link to take a couple of steps back, readjusting his tactic as he feinted left, Ganondorf following along as Link moved away from the fence and the risk of being cornered. From where Zelda was standing, it looked almost as if they were not thinking about their next hit at all, both of them moving on impulse, carried forwards by something outside of their control, only for those slight pauses where she would see Ganondorf look to the side for a fraction of a second before attacking to show her that there was thought put into the attempts at forcing the other to surrender, that it was merely a matter of her not being able to follow along with everything that was happening after having not received training where the two of them had. So she stayed where she was, grateful for the tacit surrender they had interpreted her moving away from the battle as.

It happened in a matter of seconds. Taking a step forwards, shifting his weight to put as much power into his stroke as possible, Ganondorf opened up his left side for an attack as he raised his sword, Link spotting it within moments and following through with a quick swipe of his sword, the attack aimed towards the spot just halfway between the hip and the knee.

Ganondorf stumbled, taking a series of small steps forwards, but he had already lost his balance, and although he fell with considerably more grace than Zelda had done as Link finished off the fight with a leap to put momentum behind the blow aimed at Ganondorf’s right arm, fact was that he still fell, barely managing to look up before Link had tapped the tip of his blade against his chest, a wide smile already forming on his face as Dorian stepped away from the fence, waving at them to stop.

“I think we have a winner here! Good job, Link—that was a good way of making him believe that you would attack from the right.”

“Well, I think that he saw it coming,” Link replied, already letting his sword fall to the ground to help Ganondorf up from the ground again, “so it was probably just a matter of me being quicker than him at following through on it.”

Readjusting his tunic a little, Ganondorf pushed his hair out of his face to shake his head at Link. “No, I really had not seen it coming. I was so sure that you would try to go for a spin attack rather than the leap, which, by the way, was really impressive from such a short guy.” elbowing Link in the side, Ganondorf was repaid with a chuckle as he continued. “Who would have thought that someone as small as you would be able to jump that high up from the ground without any kind of preparation? I know for a fact that I had not expected for that to happen.”

Pushing his arm aside, still grinning up at him, Link retorted. “Yeah, well, if I can’t beat you at your own game, I will just have to be stronger than you to put me on your level. But what about you, Zelda?” at the mention of her name and the subsequent reaction of all three of them to look over at where she was still leaning against the fence, Zelda stood up straighter as Link gestured for her to come over to join them. “What did you think about it? Thinking about taking lessons from the best of the best as well?”

They were trying to include her in the conversation. That much, Zelda could still see. However, even as she could see how Dorian let out a sigh, not quite able to hide a smile as Link spoke, she could not hear what Link was saying, every last bit of her attention being stolen away be the figure that was just a few metres away from her, standing in the little patch of grass that separated the arena from the winding path that ran past it.

He was not there, could not have been there, and Zelda did not believe in the idea of spirits coming back to haunt her, a fact that left only the possibility of it being a product of her imagination behind to explain what she was seeing, but even then, she could not ignore the instinctive reaction of a little gasp and the desperate attempt at smoothing out the wrinkles in her clothing, knowing that she would not be able to brush off the dirt as easily, as she looked over to see her father look at her, the disapproval clear in his eyes as he cast a glance at her before looking towards Ganondorf and Link.

“Zelda? Are you all right?”

Startling at the sensation of someone placing a hand on her shoulder, Zelda looked to the side to see Dorian looking down at her. Trying her best to find the words for what she had just seen, Zelda found that it was impossible to describe the sight that had just met her, how she had seen her father for the first time in months, instead gesturing towards the little patch of grass.

Dorian followed the line she drew, and even though the image had already disappeared, leaving the grass as just that, Zelda saw how Dorian’s expression mirrored hers as his hand fell from her shoulder, Dorian taking a step away from her, shaking his head wildly before looking back over at her, every last line on his face telling her that he had seen something as well, although the combination of fear, regret, and grief on his face indicated that he had not seen the father of someone he had known for only a few weeks.

“I—I have to go,” Dorian mumbled, barely raising his voice as he turned to look over at where Ganondorf and Link appeared to finally have noticed the change in the atmosphere surrounding them, “you have all done well, so we can stop a bit earlier today.” with that, Dorian walked over to the fence, not even bothering to reach the gate, instead jumping over the fencepost, breaking into a run the moment he landed on the other side. It did not take long before he had rounded the corner, moving out of their sight.

“What was that about?” moving over to stand next to Zelda, Ganondorf looked from her towards the direction in which Dorian had taken off. “Did he say something to you about what he was going to do?”

He had not, but before Zelda would have been able to tell Ganondorf that, before she would have had to figure out whether or not to tell him about how, for a moment, she had been certain that she had seen her father, a brief flash of light caught her attention. It lasted for a heartbeat, and yet, as Zelda saw it for what it was, there was no doubt in her mind about what she would have to do.

“Look out!” moving forwards, Zelda already had grabbed onto the sleeve of Ganondorf’s tunic before she was able to produce any sound, pulling him along with her as she threw herself down onto the ground. She could hear how Ganondorf gasped, no doubt about to ask her what she was doing, as the feeling of something cutting through the air rushed past them, a whistling noise being all they got as a warning before the arrowhead cut into the wooden planks directly next to where they had just been standing, the arrow left to quiver with the force it had been sent through the air with.

“What—”

Zelda heard the question as Ganondorf followed her line of sight, but she had already moved on, hurrying forwards. There was no time to stop and try to explain the dread that filled her as she saw another flash of light, this time coming from the hills that surrounded the village. It happened in a matter of seconds, but it felt like years as Zelda looked up from the ground to see that Link was still standing there, looking down at where she and Ganondorf were still lying on the ground, the puzzled expression already beginning to give way to realisation that would come far too late for him to avoid the arrow Zelda could hear being released in the distance, flying through the air to hit its mark. There was nothing for her to do, not as she tried her best to push herself up from the ground, knowing all too well that even if she was, by some miracle, able to stand up in time, it would not be enough for her to reach Link and pull him down along with her, and certainly not as she lay there, but Zelda could still not force herself to look away from Link as the arrow cut through the air.

For a fraction of a second, Zelda was sure that it had hit its mark, that the soft thud was the sound of Link’s gasp, but the next thing she knew, the arrow had followed the fate of the first, left in the planks of improvised flooring below them, and, finally, Zelda realised the full extent of what had happened.

“An attack!” she screamed the word, and, at last, she succeeded in making Ganondorf and Link move, Ganondorf jumping to his feet to sprint over to her to help her up from the ground before grabbing onto Link’s arm, all three of them bolting towards the gate.

Zelda heard the wood break as Ganondorf kicked open the gate, but there was no time to feel sorry for having ruined Dorian’s training area, not as Zelda saw Ganondorf stop, yelling Link’s name just as Zelda realised that Link had torn his arm out of Ganondorf’s grasp, running back towards the arena. Already, Zelda knew what had caused him to step out into one of the most exposed areas of the village, the blue and purple hilt of the Master Sword looking almost like a way of marking a target as Link picked it up, narrowly managing to step out of the way of an arrow that pierced through the air to hit the spot where he had been just a quarter of a second earlier to instead sprint back towards them.

All around them, Zelda could hear the sounds of the beginning of the end, screams soon rising up from the paths around her as people began to search for cover, Zelda spotting people ducking in under trees, standing as close to the tree trunk as they could. It was what the initial end of the world had not been, messy, noisy, and with more than enough time for Zelda to take in the fact that, despite Impa telling her that they were safe, clearly, someone had been able to find them. Seeing how people continued to run around, several children simply beginning to cry out in the open, Zelda wished that she was able to yell at them to head inside the nearest house, but with how the roofs all looked like they consisted of materials that were left behind from the past, she doubted that it would be able to change much, to do more than merely delaying the inevitable.

“What are we going to do?” Ganondorf yelled the question, but it still sounded like he was several kilometres away from her as Zelda forced herself to focus on nothing but the fact that they had to get away from Kakariko Village immediately.

“Impa!” she gasped, already trying to steer them in the direction of the stairs leading up to her house. “We have to go find Impa!”

As arrows flew through the air around them, Zelda feeling the wind that followed a few of them brush against her neck, she would not have expected for Ganondorf to try to argue with the only idea they had that had even the faintest resemblance to a plan, but it still took her by surprise how he immediately nodded at her, a grim expression blocking out everything else as he held onto her and Link, the two of them struggling to follow along as Ganondorf used his height to his advantage, moving faster and faster, the sound of their uneven breathing and footfalls soon blurring into the background along with the panicked yells of everyone around them. It should have felt as if it was all a bad dream, one she would soon wake up from, but as they turned around the corner to find that Impa had left the house, carrying a rucksack in her hand as she moved down the stairs, Zelda knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was not something that could be fixed by her pinching herself or reminding herself that even though it might feel like she could not breathe, like she was going to die there, she could still run.

Holding up the rucksack above her head, Impa reached the foot of the stairs, already trusting it into Ganondorf’s arms as she turned towards Zelda, grabbing onto her hands as she leant in towards her. “I am so sorry, my dear, but we have run out of time.” she spoke quickly, every word threatening to disappear into the next to form an incomprehensible noise that left Zelda unable to decide whether it was due to the sound of her blood rushing through her veins in an attempt at supplying every muscle with oxygen at the rate she burnt through it or if it was simply due to what the world had become, everything descending into chaos in a matter of seconds, that she could not make sense of what was happening. “I truly did believe that we would have more, but now, you have to leave this place while you still can—”

“But my powers!” it should have been unimportant, the last thing to go through Zelda’s mind as Ganondorf gripped onto the rucksack, slinging it onto his shoulders to once again reach out and try to hold onto her arm, forcing her to come along with him and Link, but Zelda still found herself holding onto Impa’s hands like her life depended on it. “I still don’t understand anything! What about my abilities—what will I do without them? What is going on—Impa, you have to explain this, I—”

“There is no time, Zelda, not if the three of you are to get out of here alive.” Zelda saw the moment Impa gave up on getting through to her, how she instead looked over her shoulder, gesturing towards Link and Ganondorf as she continued. “Go to the Temple of Time! There, you might just be able to find the answers that you need!”

“But—”

“Zelda!” the voice cut through the panic for a second, Zelda looking away from Impa, up towards the house.

Then, the panic returned.

Up there, standing just a few metres away from the door, but still so far out in the open that Zelda knew that neither of them would be able to do anything, should one of the attackers notice that fact, was Paya. Either not recognising or perhaps ignoring the danger she was in, Zelda saw how she followed her grandmother in rushing down the stairs, Zelda only given the time to open her mouth to try to find the words to tell her to get back inside immediately before Paya had leapt off the last step, throwing her arms around her with so much momentum behind her that Zelda found herself instinctively taking a step backwards to maintain her balance, Ganondorf steadying both of them as she backed into him.

“Paya?” she was wasting time, Zelda already feeling how the precious seconds they could not afford to waste slipped away between her hands, and still, she found herself reaching out, holding on to Paya like she would have disappeared into thin air if she loosened her grip around her waist just the tiniest bit.

“Come on, Zelda, we have to go!”

Link’s yell along with Ganondorf ‘s attempt at pulling her along with them brought her back to reality, Zelda looking over at Paya and realising exactly what was going to happen, that the moment she would let go of her, they would be separated again.

“No.” Zelda shook her head, leaning in closer towards Paya, the result being that both of them had to take a step backwards as Ganondorf continued to try to bring all of them towards where the mountain pass led away from the village. “Paya, please, come with us, we—I need you, please!”

Already, Zelda knew what the answer would be, but it did nothing to lessen the pain as Paya shook her head, looking almost like she was about to apologise for it before changing course to instead let her hands brush against Zelda’s arms as she brought an end to the hug. Immediately, Zelda found herself forced to take another step away from her, losing her hold on her.

“I am going to be fine, Zelda. As long as you can promise me the same thing, nothing really bad is going to happen.” Paya said the words as every last thing about her facial expression and body language said the exact opposite, Zelda not missing how her shoulders had risen up towards her ears, Paya’s gaze flickering away from hers as another arrow flew through the air, missing both of them by centimetres to instead hit the wooden stairs.

“But—” Zelda began, only for the sound of what she could almost believe was thunder to tear her away from Paya.

She was pulled backwards, Zelda no longer able to determine whether it was Ganondorf or Link who had reached out to grab her just in time to pull her back and away from Paya and Impa seconds before the tree next to the road began to fall to the side, the sound of wood creaking and roots being torn out of the ground soon filling the air around them as Zelda saw the disaster unfold in front of her, the tree soon collapsing under its own weight to land where she and Paya had been mere seconds before.

She could have died. Rationally, Zelda knew that she should have stopped to take in what had just happened, to try to make sense of the way Paya looked over at her, the mask of calmness having fully given way to panic as her grandmother all but dragged her back up the stairs, but it was almost as if she was not quite present anymore, like it was someone else who forced her to move, to tear her gaze away from how the door fell shut behind them just in time to stop an arrow from following them into the house, to run alongside Ganondorf and Link as they all began to sprint through the defile. Around her, Zelda could hear how the sounds of fighting in the village grew distant, dimmed by their attempt at sprinting away from it all.

They should turn around. It would have been the right thing to do, to go back and help everyone, but as Zelda tried to slow down, Ganondorf was at her side in moments, grabbing onto her hand and continuing to run along the mountain pass. At least that was what Zelda wanted to believe was the reason that she did not try harder to make them turn around and help, that she physically could not do it. It was a far more pleasant thought than the idea that it might be a matter or her lacking the courage to move directly back towards the most dangerous place in the area was. Compared to that, the fact that she could still see how Paya’s eyes had widened as she had avoided the tree by centimetres, it was easier to let Ganondorf pull her along, unable to focus on what he and Link were yelling at each other with how the sound of her own heartbeat echoed in her ears.

The attack happened instantly, the only warning they got being an intense feeling of dread that made Zelda move ahead, barely pausing to note how Ganondorf and Link fell silent as she stopped in front of them, hand outstretched as an orange plume of smoke appeared from out of thin air, a gust of wind blowing it away to reveal how a member of the Yiga Clan was standing right in front of them.

With the oranges and greys of their clothes seeming almost like a reflection of how the orange smoke twisted around the curved blade in their hand, it was beyond Zelda how they had ever been able to fool themselves into believing for even a second that the Yiga Clan could be anything other than a threat to them. The mask did not allow them to make out any expression, but Zelda could still imagine the satisfied smirk that must have passed over the soldier’s face as they raised their weapon. Victory was almost guaranteed, Zelda left there, trying her best to force her magic to manifest as the sun was reflected by the metal, the Yiga member effectively cutting off their only escape route.

Closing her eyes, Zelda tried not to imagine how it would happen, not to wait for the imminent attack. It was better that way.

Above her, she felt the air brushing against her face as the blade was brought down, but rather than a sharp sense of pain, what followed was the feeling of someone grabbing onto her arm so tightly that it felt like they were going to dislocate it as they yanked her backwards, away from the weapon.

Metal struck metal, Zelda opening her eyes again to see that Link had parried the attack, shoving the Yiga soldier off balance with a twist of the sword, making them lose their grip on their own blade. It hit the ground just as Link finished the attack with a quick kick to their stomach, the Yiga member recoiling, one hand raised to cover their stomach as Ganondorf rushed past them, Zelda following alongside him.

“Go, go, go, go!” Link screamed the words, pivoting around to put his momentum into catching up with them.

However, the Yiga soldier did the same, Zelda hearing how the sound of footfalls behind them slowly began to move closer to them, and the next thing she knew, pain shot through her scalp as someone grabbed onto a fistful of her hair. The world should have slowed down around her as Zelda realised that she could feel the warmth of the Yiga soldier as they held onto her hair, that they were not going to let go again, but rather than slowing down, it appeared that the world began to spin even faster, threatening to leave them behind as Zelda tried to tear her hair out of their grip, gritting her teeth as her efforts proved to be in vain.

“Zelda, move away from them now!”

She did not have time to try to figure out what was going to happen, and so, without thinking, she followed the order, pulling her head to the side as she felt the strain in her hair as it was stretched out to its full length.

The sound of metal cutting through air preceded a hiss of pain as the tension disappeared to allow her to be dragged forwards by Ganondorf, the two of them only pausing for a moment to look back at where Link had finally caught up with them, a few drops of blood having stained the tip of the Master Sword red.

Gesturing towards where the defile opened up to the familiar sight of the lake she and Paya had dipped their feet in only a day ago, Link did not show any signs of exhaustion as he yelled at them. “Continue that way! If we are surrounded in here, we won’t stand a chance; I need to get out in the open to have a chance when faced with the Yiga Clan!”

His words were followed by a loud rumble, Zelda instinctively looking, halfway expecting to see dark clouds and the beginning of a storm, only to see a cloudless sky. The sight seemed almost misplaced among the adrenaline and the fear as they broke into one last sprint towards the end of the defile, that the sky would look more like it had been meant for a picnic as they ran for their lives, and still, the rumble continued, growing in intensity, until it was a matter of the entire world shaking around them. Through the fog of the adrenaline in her mind, it took Zelda a moment too long to realise that she had been right about that, that it was indeed a matter of the entire world shaking around her, and, in the end, it was nothing but pure, dumb luck that saved them, Zelda hearing how something was moving above their heads, the boulder almost blocking out the sun as it rolled towards the edge of the cliff above them, casting a long shadow down over them as it balanced there for another moment before gravity took hold of it, pulling it down towards the ground..

It hit the ground with a kind of loud, thunderous crash that Zelda had only ever heard when watching bad action films, the gust of wind that followed pushing all three of them forwards., Zelda barely managing to remain upright as they all stopped to look back at what could have been their deaths.

The boulder was enormous, its width nearly equal to that of the mountain pass, and with a height that reached up far above the point where they might still have been able to climb over it, making her have to crane her neck to look up towards the top of it. Glancing towards where Ganondorf and Link had stopped next to her as well, Link still clutching the Master Sword, looking like it was the only thing that kept him standing, and Ganondorf looking at the boulder, forming silent words, Zelda knew that they were all taking in the size of the boulder and reaching the same conclusion: no one would be able to use that road to enter or leave Kakariko Village anymore.

Zelda was certain that they could have stayed there until the end of times or until another member of the Yiga Clan would have found them, but in the end, Ganondorf shook his head, looking almost like he was shaking off a spell as he took another step backwards, away from the boulder. “We—we have to get going. We have no idea about how much time that will buy us, if it will even change anything.”

Logically, Zelda knew that he was right. The boulder might have fallen to cut off the path into Kakariko Village, but with how the first arrows had come from the hills surrounding the village, it would be dangerous to assume that it ruled out the possibility of the Yiga still following them, using the elevation of their surroundings to their advantage. And yet, for as much as Zelda could recognise the fact that they had to continue, had to move further away from Kakariko Village before they would be able to breathe for a moment, she could not ignore the feeling of the danger having passed.

“Please,” Ganondorf repeated, reaching out to tug at her hand, “Zelda, you know that I am right. We have to leave now!”

She was about to tell him that she was not so sure of that but a single glimpse of the look in his eyes was enough to silence her. Ganondorf was not looking at her. Despite talking to her and still trying to get her to move further away from the boulder, he was looking directly past her, and as Zelda turned to follow his line of sight, she saw what had caused the fearful look in his eyes.

Link was staring at the boulder. That, in itself, would perhaps not have been enough for Zelda to note how her heart skipped a beat, fear once again clouding her thoughts, but there was something about the way he looked as he stood there, having tightened his grip on the hilt of the Master Sword to a point where it looked like he could not have let go of it if he had wanted to, that made her veins feel like they contained nothing but ice as a drop of blood fell from the tip of the blade, hitting the grass below.

That was what made the decision for her, Zelda reaching out to grab onto his arm. Trying her best to ignore the way Link looked at her like he could not recognise her, Zelda tried to pull him along with her as she nodded towards Ganondorf. “He is right, Link. We _have_ to get going.”

Link blinked, the distant gleam in his eyes disappearing as he blinked once and then twice, nodding his head for a moment, everything about him, from the way he his glance shifted from her and over to Ganondorf to the crease that appeared between his brows, sending chills down Zelda’s spine as he finally moved, all three of them running towards the bridge that would hopefully lead them further away from both Kakariko Village and the Yiga Clan. They crossed it without hesitating, Zelda barely having time to ponder the question of what would happen to them if it really did give way below them before they were on the other side.

There was no plan, no moment where any of them stopped to try to think of an idea about what they would do, try to get a sense of what options they had left, what the best tactic would be. The only thing they had to hold onto as they continued to run was panic and adrenaline. That was all the years of receiving top marks in almost every subject had left Zelda with, blind panic, the echo of Impa telling them that they would have to head to the Temple of Time if they wanted to find the answers they had hoped to find in the village they had just abandoned to its fate, and the inability to do anything other than forcing herself to push through the pain as she struggled to keep up with Ganondorf and Link as they all sprinted towards the forest the rose up on the other side of the field, united in their shared assessment of it being their only chance of escaping both the arrows and the Yiga Clan in the event that they would try to track them down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, what little sense of safety and joy they have been able to find in Kakariko Village has come to an end.


	17. Chapter 17

She awoke with a scream having already formed in the back of her throat as she opened her eyes to see how the green colour of the foliage above her head let through a sickly shade of light. Her breath already increasing in speed as it grew shallower, Zelda saw how her vision began to swim, the green of the leaves above and the brown colour of the tree trunks blurring together to form pure panic when she heard twigs break as someone crouched down next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder that Zelda lacked the strength to try to push away.

“Zelda, Zelda, calm down! Everything is fine, but you have to calm down before you pass out! You breathing—you have to get control over it. Now, breathe in and wait and out and wait.”

Little by little, as she followed the instructions, distantly aware of how every last part of her mind screamed at her not to, Zelda found herself able to once again make out what she was seeing, the blur of red that had pushed away some of the green soon losing its resemblance to blood as she recognised Ganondorf and the way his hair was framing his face.

He seemed exhausted. Sitting there, Zelda slowly becoming aware of her surroundings, how the bark of the tree she was leaning against had left her with a sore spot just above her left shoulder blade, the little details began to stand out, Zelda seeing the blue shadows beneath Ganondorf’s eyes, the way his eyes did not reflect the smile he sent her as he patted her shoulder for a moment, and how he swayed slightly to the side as he held out his hand.

He could not have slept at all. It was such an obvious conclusion, and still, Zelda found herself hesitating to reach up to take his hand, trying her best to recall anything from the day before that was not fear and instincts forcing her to move as they narrowly succeeded in keeping her alive, doing her best to remember how it had ended, only for all her mind was able to produce to answer her question being the vivid memory of seeing blood run along the edge of the blade of Link’s sword and knowing that it was there because of her.

“You fell asleep shortly after we agreed that this was the safest we were going to be in the moment.” Ganondorf must have been able to read her mind, for he answered the unspoken question without hesitation. That, or maybe he was able to guess what she was thinking. As Zelda finally reached up to take his hand, Ganondorf pulling her to her feet, that seemed like the most likely answer, especially as he followed it with a nod towards a point just next to them. “Link and I agreed that it would be best not to wake you up.”

Zelda turned to look towards where he was pointing.

Sitting on the ground, with the rucksack solidly planted on the ground in front of him, Link could have made it appear like he was merely digging through it to figure out what they should eat now because they had gone hiking. With the cream colour of his clothing only slightly stained by a few patches of green where he must have come a little too close to the grass, it was a lie that Zelda could convince herself might have been the truth once. However, it lasted only for a second, before Link turned to the side to face her, revealing the cut that had drawn a line down his cheek, the dried blood having only recently formed a scab if the red stains that covered the lower half of his left sleeve were any indication.

He looked just as tired as Ganondorf, but he still raised his hand to wave at her as she and Ganondorf walked over to sit down next to him, gesturing towards the can he had placed on the ground in front of him like there was anything normal about what they were doing, like they had not just had to flee for their lives, almost been crushed by a boulder, and were now all alone out in the forest in an area Zelda would be the first to admit that she did not know that well.

“Hi. It is good to see you.” picking up the can in front of him, Link pointed towards the picture on the side of it, Zelda struggling to focus on the fact that it proclaimed the contents of it to be beans. “I am afraid we are going to have to enjoy a cold breakfast. Ganondorf and I discussed the possibility of heating it up, but,” Link let out a chuckle that was only slightly too high-pitched to sound sincere, “well, not only are we hiding in a forest and trying our best not to be found, we also had no idea about just _how_ we would go about starting a fire, seeing as we left the camping stove behind, so it seems that the menu is going to be cold beans today.”

He turned away from them again, leaving Zelda to her thoughts as Ganondorf leant to the side, the two of them leading a hushed conversation. There was no need for that. Though Zelda could see that they were talking about her from the way they continued to cast glances in her direction, she could not bring herself to even bother try to listen to what they were saying. For all she cared, they could have had their conversation out in the open, yelling over her head. Even then, she doubted that she would have been able to focus on it.

They were out in the wild again. Once again, they had stopped in a place Zelda had never been to before, Link having taken on the task of being the one in charge of the food without any of them outright giving the task to him. In a way, it should have felt familiar, and yet, for as much as Zelda tried to force herself to mentally return to the last time they had sat like that, to keep in mind what they would have to do next, her thoughts kept on going nowhere other than towards the place they had just left behind.

Kakariko Village. With how Zelda could no longer hear anything, no screams or sounds of fighting rising up in the distance, she was sure that the Yiga Clan was not searching through the forest in an attempt at finding them. Had she had any optimism or hope left, she might have decided to regard it as a sign that they had been forced to surrender. Only, Zelda was not an optimist. Dorian had been in Kakariko when the attack had begun, and so had Steen and Olkin, but they were only three people against the entire Yiga Clan. Zelda could only try to guess how many warriors were part of the clan, but if the fight with them in the museum had shown her anything, it was that they were easily able to outnumber three people. Even if that had not been the case, they had still had the element of surprise on their side throughout the attack.

“Zelda?” snapping his fingers in front of her face, Link brought her back to reality. “Do you think that sounds nice?”

“Huh?”

From how he shook his head, not quite managing to hide the concerned look he sent Ganondorf, Zelda knew that he had guessed the reason for why she had not paid attention. But at least he did not comment on it, instead smiling at her as he repeated himself. “I was just asking you if you thought that it would sound nice to eat beans now and then some paella for dinner.”

She could not figure out just what she thought about that idea, mainly because none of the words meant anything to her, all of them little more than white noise in her ears. Still, Zelda tried her best to at least give off the impression that she was paying attention, tilting her head to the side as she went over what he had just said, her stomach sinking as she did. “Beans and paella—Link, just how much food do we have?”

The seed of fear was confirmed as Link hesitated for a moment too long before answering. “Uh… we have quite a bit of tinned food considering the situation, especially if Impa had planned for you and her being the only ones who would go out into the woods.”

There was something he was not telling her. Zelda knew that as he reached up to rub the back of his head, so she continued. “And what else?”

She should have felt guilty for using the fact that she was the only one of them who had got the chance to sleep ever since they had fled from Kakariko Village, but as Link refused her attempts at maintaining eye contact, looking down at the tin, his hands, the ground, everywhere but her, all Zelda could feel was dread.

“There is also a knife,” Link finally admitted, “a knife, a couple of bottles of water and… well, all of our Sheikah Slates are there as well.”

“Oh, Hylia,” Zelda whispered.

Next to them, Ganondorf sent the rucksack a long look, one that so clearly said what all three of them where thinking before he had even turned back to face them again. “You don’t think,” Ganondorf said, emphasising every word, “you don’t think that she might have known that this would happen?”

Immediately, Link denied any chance of that being the case, placing the can down on the ground just to be able to cross his arms in front of his chest as he told them that it was not possible that Impa had known about it.

Zelda could only just pay enough attention to the conversation to faintly register that Ganondorf did not outright try to say anything to counter Link’s argument, not as the memory of how Impa had told her to go to Ganondorf and Link came to fill ever last part of her mind. They had less time than she had hoped for them to be given. Was that not what Impa had told her as she had ordered Zelda to go seek out the others while she would make sure to pack a bag of supplies for them to bring along as they would make the journey out to the fountain?

As much as Zelda tried to search for the moment where she should have caught on to the fact that Impa knew more than she told her, the fraction of a second where Zelda would have been able to guess what was to come if she had only paid more attention to her, she could not see it. There was no second she was able to pinpoint as the one where she should have seen through Impa’s talk of the forest and the fountain, no slight tremble in her voice Zelda could take as a sign that she had known. And yet, Zelda could not join Link in denying that there was something about the way Impa had rushed towards them, the rucksack already ready, telling them where to go, that made it feel like that had to be the case. They had been under attack, and yet, Impa had remained remarkably calm, just as she had ensured that the three of them would be together as the attack began by sending Zelda to see Ganondorf, Link, and Dorian, and now here they were, sitting with the rucksack Impa had prepared that contained far too many supplies for two people.

“Link,” Zelda said, Link failing silent in an instant, “I think that Ganondorf is right. Impa—I think that she might have known.”

The fight was over. Link unfolded his arms, looking at her with defeat in his eyes, but still, he did not stop just then. “But then why did she not tell us? What were her reasons for not telling us in advance? How was it in any way helpful that we did not know that we would be attacked?” the last question sounded exactly like what it was: a desperate way of trying to convince themselves that Impa had not kept something as big as an attack from the Yiga Clan secret from them.

The worst part of it was that Zelda did not even have any idea for what she could say in response, leaving her to shrug, knowing full well that it was not enough. “I don’t know.” the words came out as a whisper. “I really don’t know, Link. I just know that, no matter what, we left everyone behind. Impa, Paya, Dorian—we left them all behind as we fled.”

There was a rustle as Ganondorf moved over to wrap an arm around her, pulling her closer. Zelda could appreciate the attempt at comforting her for what it was, but even then, it did nothing to take away the fact that she had left them all behind. Even if Impa had known and failed to tell them about the impending attack, it had still been their decision to leave the village.

Looking down at her hands, Zelda could still feel where Paya had held onto her like it had been burnt into her skin. If she had held on for just a second longer, if she had tried again to convince her to come along, perhaps Paya would be sitting out there with them in that moment.

Zelda had hardly got the chance to try to envision it, Paya sitting across from her, her hair tousled and moved out of the perfect bun that had been piled up onto her head, before the guilt flared up again. Here she was, thinking about Paya, when the entire village had been attacked. A moment of weakness was all it took for Zelda to recall what Dorian had told them about his wife, and after that, there was no way back for her, not as she tried to think of ways the people they had left might have escaped, only to find that she could not think of one that did not involve a high risk of casualties. With the boulder having blocked the path through the defile, all Zelda could see was the option of going the other way, walking out in the open where the Yiga Clan would still have the advantage of having archers placed up in the hills.

“Hey,” Ganondorf, said, running his thumb along her shoulder in a motion that was no doubt intended to be calming, but only served to remind her of the fact that they had survived against all odds when everyone else had most likely not been so lucky, “I am sure that they are fine. If Impa knew about the attack, I cannot imagine that she would not begin to prepare for it in advance—besides,” Ganondorf’s voice rose a bit, becoming a bit more hopeful. The change was not large, but it was still enough to catch Zelda’s attention, making her look up from the ground as Ganondorf continued, “we all saw that Dorian left us moments before the attack began. I am sure that he would have gone directly to Impa. Then, she could have told him about the attack, giving him the chance to arm the rest of the village.” he looked towards them, and Zelda could see the silent plea for them to agree.

Link was the first of them to give in. Once again picking up the tinned beans, he nodded at Ganondorf. “Yeah, that sounds like Dorian. Really, if anything, we should be feeling bad for the Yiga Clan—I have no doubt that Dorian would be able to defeat them with both hands tied behind his back.”

That that had not been what they had seen back inside the museum was almost a sentence that left Zelda’s mouth, but she bit her tongue at the last moment to keep it from slipping out. Just because she could not see a way for the people in Kakariko Village to have survived did not mean that she had to destroy her friend’s hopes as well.

For it would appear that they were beginning to find genuine hope, Ganondorf’s voice losing the edge of pretence as he pointed towards Link. “You are absolutely right. With Dorian, Steen, and Olkin, I am sure that the village would have plenty of time to organise their escape, and—”

“They have the motorcycle,” Link finished, “that and possibly more than the one we saw, and—oh,” Link’s face fell, the second it took him to paint a smile onto it instead being more than enough for Zelda to notice it, “they have Epona as well… which means that they would be able to outrun the Yiga Clan!”

They both turned towards her.

She knew what they were trying to do, that that was supposed to be the moment where she would nod and agree with them, where she would say that they had a point. Deep down, Zelda supposed that part of her wanted to do that as well, wanted to give in to the idea of everything being fine. But she could not. It was not a matter of her not wanting to believe that everyone was all right—for, Hylia, did she wish that she was able to believe that Purah would have created some kind of machine or concoction that would give them the edge in the battle—she simply could not convince herself that it could be the case after all. They had left to save their own lives, and now, she would have to continue on with the knowledge that they had made that decision. And yet, looking over at where Link was leaning towards her, the tin of beans pressed against the ground as he tried to balance himself, she could not bring herself to tell him that.

Instead, Zelda let out a sigh. “I guess that you may be right.”

Link did not outright let out a victorious yelp, but his smile did grow a bit brighter as he moved back into a more balanced position. “Yes, of course I am, Zelda. I am glad you agreed with me at last, just as I am glad that you are awake, because we really need to talk about what we are going to do now.”

“What do you mean?” Zelda frowned, trying to figure out if there was something she had forgot about that would explain why he phrased it as a question when the answer was clear. “Impa told us to journey to the Temple of Time for the answers, so that is what we are going to do.” Link’s question was one with an answer already present, and yet, as Zelda took in the way Link hesitated to say anything, Ganondorf avoiding looking directly at her as she turned to him for support, it dawned on her that it might not be as simple as it should have been. Still, Zelda would not give up on what might prove to be their only chance of finding any answers about the cycle and how they could bring an end to it so easily, so she tried again. “Nothing we can do now will mean anything if we do not figure out how to end the cycle. If the answers to that question can be found at the Temple of Time, then that is where we will have to go; it is as simple as that.”

“Zelda.” Ganondorf said the word slowly, carefully, sounding like he was worried about what her response would be. “We agree with you on the cycle having to be our main priority, but…” he grimaced, “you have to admit that we really have no way of knowing whether or not that was what Impa meant when she told you that the answers could be found there.”

She knew what the answer to her question was going to be, that it would feel like a kick to the chest, but Zelda still found herself asking it. “But then what could she have been referring to when she mentioned the answers we could find there if it was not the cycle?”

Looking towards Link for help, Link simply holding his hands up in front of him, Ganondorf closed his eyes before speaking. “I think that she might have meant your powers. I mean, it sounded like they would be important, and you still have yet to figure out how to access them, don’t you?”

Having tried to prepare for being reminded of the fact that she had yet to prove herself the same way Ganondorf and Link had done did not make it feel any less horrible, but she could not allow herself to focus on that. If there was even the slightest chance that anyone from Kakariko Village might have survived, if she could think of Paya, Impa, Purah, anyone, as she tried to find something that would ensure that a disaster like the disease would never be allowed to strike again, then Zelda had to focus on that.

Rather than curling up around the wound in her soul, Zelda sat up straighter, Ganondorf’s arm sliding off her shoulders as she turned to face him. “You are right about that. I still haven’t figured out how I am meant to use my powers, or even what I can use them for. But I have to believe that Impa was talking about more than that; I have to believe that we will be able to find the answers to the question of how to break the cycle within the Temple of Time. Besides, she told me that we would head out into the forest specifically to help me reach out for my powers, being clear about the goal for that journey. Given that, I doubt that she would have meant the plea for us to go to the Temple of Time solely to be about my attempts at awakening my powers. I have to believe that, and I think that you and Link have to as well.”

Ganondorf, having otherwise just opened his mouth, no doubt to try to counter the argument, fell silent, proving her point.

“I…” Ganondorf shook his head, letting out a sigh, “that is correct, Zelda. I do need to believe that we still have a chance of bringing an end to the cycle, and I have to admit that what you are saying does make some amount of sense. However,” Ganondorf held up his hand, pausing her interruption before it had even begun, “that does not answer the question of how you are supposed to learn about your powers now. If Impa isn’t here to teach you and with how trying to find the fountain on our own without running into the Yiga Clan is something we will have to give up on in advance, then the possibility of finding the answers within the Temple of Time is the only option I can see that we are still able to pin our faith on.”

Zelda had nothing she could say in response to that. Really, there was nothing to say. She could have talked about the cycle and the importance of breaking it for as long as she wished to and it would not change the fact that Ganondorf was right to question her chances of ever figuring out her powers. They were not there, Zelda still feeling the barrier between herself and the spirit realm as she tried to reach out, still just barely out of her reach. If her being able to manifest her powers was needed for bringing an end to the cycle the way Ganondorf suggested, Zelda had to admit that he was right to doubt the possibility of there being any hope that following that plan would lead to anything at all. It was tempting to give up and admit defeat, Zelda would admit that. If she gave up, they would only have to convince Link that the most important thing right then was to ensure their own survival and then they would not have to think about the Temple of Time ever again.

But no matter what had happened to the people of Kakariko Village, whether they had survived or not, they deserved better than that, so Zelda squared her shoulders and prepared herself for the impending discussion as she looked directly into Ganondorf’s eyes. “No,” she said, “I know that I can figure it out on my own. I promise you that by the time we get to the Temple of Time, I will have solved the puzzle of how I am meant to reach my abilities.”

Ganondorf shot her an exhausted look, Zelda making sure that she was not the first of them to break eye contact as he looked over at Link. “What do you think, Link?”

It was the deciding vote, something Zelda knew that Link was aware of as well from the way he did not answer immediately, instead taking a moment to look between them. “I think,” Link said, “that Zelda might be right. If there is even the slightest chance that the means of breaking the cycle can be found within the Temple of Time, then that is something we cannot ignore. Besides, even if we are wrong and Impa really meant it as another opportunity for Zelda to try to gain access to her powers, that would also be a good thing for us. Really, the way I see it, going to the Temple of Time is our only real option right now.”

The discussion was over. That much was clear from the way Ganondorf pressed his lips together, the tense line of his shoulders letting them know how he wanted to protest that decision but knew that they had reached an agreement already. It was the end of the discussion, but it did not feel like a victory at all, not as Ganondorf shook his head at them, his voice shaking slightly when he opened his mouth again to speak. “All right, all right. If the two of you agree that that it is what we have to do, then I will trust that you know what you are doing. But, Link,” Ganondorf clutched the loose fabric of his trousers, creasing it as it formed a little ball in his hand, “I expect that in case anything goes wrong inside the Temple of Time, you will remember your promise.”

“Of course I will.” Link did not hesitate for a moment before he bowed his head, but it was the look in his eyes as he did so that captured Zelda’s attention, the fear, sadness and pain that could be seen there combining to form something that brought an end to any hopes of the promise being something harmless that Zelda might otherwise have been able to nourish.

Looking back and forth between them, Zelda bit the inside of her cheek to keep the question from leaving her mouth. She did not want to know, not really, not if the answer she might have got was able to make Link’s eyes turn dark, Ganondorf’s face looking like it was made of stone as he did not show any reaction to the assurance that Link would keep his promise. The need to know was alluring, but Zelda could still sense how she would be better off living in blissful ignorance.

The moment could barely have lasted for more than a handful of seconds, but Zelda could still see how Ganondorf had to force himself to show anything other than grim determination as he looked back down at her again. “So, Zelda, do you have any idea about how we are going to get to the Temple of Time? Because, I don’t know about you, Link, but I know that that was never something we discussed in our geography classes.”

“Me neither,” Link interjected, “it was mostly just general knowledge about the area around us, not really a lot about the locations of the temples.” he added a chuckle that Zelda doubted would have been enough to convince even a five-year-old.

The atmosphere had changed, the air feeling thick around her, making Zelda struggle with the sensation of being unable to get enough air into her lungs, but she still forced herself to nod her head at Ganondorf. “Yeah, I know where it is. I—my old class and I, we visited it once back in the sixth grade—school camp, if I remember correctly. It is up on the Great Plateau, very close to the path up there. If we get there, we can’t miss it.”

“Okay.” Zelda could not tell if it was merely wishful thinking or if Ganondorf sounded slightly more hopeful as he rose to his feet. “And I assume that you know how to get to the Great Plateau then?”

She could only nod in response, the lump in her throat making it impossible for her to force out any words.

Thankfully, it seemed to be enough for Ganondorf as he looked over at Link, motioning towards the tinned beans. “In that case, we should probably get going as soon as possible, preferably once we have finished breakfast. What do you say?”

It was a unanimous decision, and though Zelda knew that she could not speak for the two others, she could not shake the feeling that they too were eager to leave the forest behind and get as much distance as possible between themselves and Kakariko Village. To say that it was only a matter of fearing that the Yiga Clan might discover their hiding place would be a comforting lie, but a lie nonetheless. As Link handed her the can of beans without a word but with an expression that let her know that they had no way of knowing when they would come across more food and that they had to share, the only thing Zelda could do to keep her mind from flying back to the moment where she had been separated from Paya and the question of whether she, Impa, Purah, Dorian, Koko, Cottla, and the rest of Kakariko Village had survived was to force herself to focus on the flat taste of the cold beans.

+++

There was no conscious decision to ration the food. They did not sit down as the sun reached the point in the sky where they would have returned to Impa’s house for lunch and decide that if they wanted to make sure that their supplies would last them for long enough to let them reach the Great Plateau or at least another place where they could find food, then they had to be careful and not eat more than what was strictly necessary. Instead, it happened without any of them discussing the fact that the sun began to set before Link gestured for them to stop.

It was almost sad how little distance they had managed to cover in the span of a day. Zelda had not really realised just how much it had meant to be able to push a trolley in front of her, to have a horse walking along next to them at a pace that made them have to move quicker if they did not want to constantly have to make her slow down, but as she looked back at how the forest, albeit much smaller against the horizon than it had looked when Zelda had first realised that they would forgo lunch, was still visible, the trees looking almost laughably small against the tall cliffs next to them, she could not help but wonder just how little the day’s journey would amount to if they were to compare it with how much distance they still had left to cover before they would reach the Temple of Time.

Perhaps that was why it just happened, that none of them were willing to be the one to stop and suggest that they should eat something, tearing into their limited supplies and calling for them to make a stop. No matter the explanation, fact was that they kept on going until they reached a bridge over yet another river.

It looked no less dilapidated than the one near the defile, but seeing as that had been able to fulfil its intended task of allowing them to move across the rush of water without breaking, Zelda stayed silent as they all stepped out onto it. A few of the stones shifted below her weight, Zelda having to reach out to grab onto the railing a couple of times to keep herself from falling, but the bridge remained intact as they reached the other side. Considering what had happened over the last couple of days, it felt almost like it should have required more luck than what they deserved, but if that was the case, Zelda would not try to argue against it, not if it finally meant that they had an advantage.

In front of them, the twin mountains of the Dueling Peaks rose up, cutting into the sky, the flow of the river continuing on its path between them, but none of them made any indication of being about to move forwards.

Looking towards the narrow strip of land on both sides of the river, a wave casting a little spray of water up onto it from time to time, Zelda had to admit that she did not look forward to having to traverse the distance, especially not if it would turn out that they might not be able to make it before nightfall, leaving them to sleep directly next to the river, with so little distance between themselves and the water that Zelda was already beginning to wonder just how much they would be able to move in their sleep before it would send them rolling into the river.

She could not have been much more grateful for the fact that her hesitation was shared by the two others, Ganondorf turning around to gesture towards Link, his plan already clear from the look in his eyes. “Uh… maybe, it would be for the better if we are fully rested before we face…that.” He nodded towards the river, Zelda finding herself wondering if he was referring to the water or the fact that she did not dare to think about the risk of boulders falling from the top of the mountain while they were walking through the mountain pass below. “Link, did I hear something about paella?” Ganondorf motioned towards the rucksack Link had slung over his shoulder, waiting a couple of seconds before repeating his words again, the time made longer by how Link did not give any indication that he had heard him. “Link?”

Link did not react at first, instead staring down into the water, a dark look in his eyes making him look almost unrecognisable. It was not until Ganondorf had cleared his throat and repeated his name for the second time that he appeared to become aware of the world around him, looking up at them with a startle, a hint of fear in his expression that Zelda did not know the cause for just as she did not know what she could do to take it away from him as he stuttered slightly before nodding. “No—I mean, yes, the paella, yeah, I did say that we could eat that for dinner—just, give me a moment, and then I will have it ready—you don’t mind that it is cold, right?” before they would have got the chance to answer, Link had already shaken his head at himself. “I’m sorry, I keep on forgetting that there is no way for us to heat it up.” holding his hands up in front of him, Zelda unsure of whether it was meant as a placating gesture, if he was aware of what he was doing as he placed the rucksack on the ground and dug into it, still mumbling to himself. “Paella, paella, it is here somewhere, just give me a moment and then… then we will have something to eat, something cold.”

Exchanging a look with Ganondorf, Zelda could see the question that went through her head reflected in his eyes as Link continued to cast worried glances towards the water, but as he pulled out the can of paella, not looking over at them for even a moment, she lacked the courage to try to address it. Instead, she allowed it to pass by without uttering a single word about it, Ganondorf appearing to make the same decision as he went over to sit down next to Link, Zelda following his lead.

The grass was still damp below her, but she could not tell if it was the result of the waves in the river or if it had rained recently. It did not matter, not in that moment, not when they had only barely made it away from Kakariko Village in one piece, but Zelda could still not shove away the growing feelings frustration as she sat there, unable to even find the answers to such a simple question. That had been what had been the issue the entire time, had it not? There had not been any answers for her to find within Kakariko Village, not in regards to her powers, not in regards to exactly what they would have to do to bring an end to the cycle, and certainly not about herself. Sneaking a peek at Ganondorf, Zelda wondered if he and Link felt the same way. She could not ask them, not without revealing her own feelings on the subject, and as the Master Sword caught the rays of the setting sun, reflecting the orange light directly into her eyes, she doubted that they would be able to understand what she meant if she were to explain it. Granted, they must be able to relate to at least some of it, if nothing else then to the feeling of being trapped in the cycle and the talk of destiny, but still, as Zelda tried her best to sit up straighter, only for her to give up moments later and instead allow her spine to draw an s-shape as she slumped forwards, she could not imagine that they would have understood just what she was trying to say if she had opened her mouth. They had been able to do something. It might not have been much, but at least Ganondorf had possessed the wits to get them away from Kakariko moments before their escape route would have been blocked by the boulder, just as Link had thought to grab a weapon to defend them with. Meanwhile, she had panicked, first trying to convince Paya to come with them, wasting time, and then almost causing all of them to be captured by having her hair be in the way, serving as a convenient way for the Yiga soldier to stop them.

Running her hand through her hair, Zelda felt how the knots had made her hair become little more than a big clump of tousled locks and split ends, and even without walking the few metres down to the bank of the river, she was certain that her reflection would have shown her the exact same thing, a girl with hair that almost threatened to drown her, overpowering the rest of her. Her father had encouraged her to take care of it, to have it be as long as possible, saying something about how the newspapers liked the image of the perfect daughter of the perfect mayor who might go on to become the next prime minister of Hyrule. It had been good for his image, and, in return, good for Zelda’s meticulously crafted reputation of being the perfect daughter as well. Trying to brush out one of the knots with her fingers, Zelda could feel the tension build at the top of her head, and, suddenly, it felt as if she could not breathe, like the hair really was about to pull her down, drowning her by taking away any means of escape the same way it had threatened to do when the member of the Yiga Clan had grabbed onto it. Breaking through the surface with a gasp, Zelda tore her hands away from her hair just as Ganondorf turned towards her, brows already drawn together in worry.

“Zelda?” a moment before he would have placed his hand on her shoulder, Ganondorf stopped, his hand hovering just above her as he looked from her face towards the few strands of hair that had followed along as she had torn her hand away from the long locks of dirty and greasy hair. “Is everything all right?”

It would have been easy to nod and try to brush it off, perhaps even adding a laugh and a comment about how she was looking forward to them reaching a city where she might be able to find some shampoo and still water, but already as Zelda tried to form the sentence in her mind, she knew that she would not have been able to say it. It would have been a lie, all of it, from the idea that the main issue was the state of her hair and not the length to the idea that she feared the current in the water more than the idea of having it grab onto her hair as she ducked below the surface.

Zelda shook her head, her hair hanging in lumps around her face as she did so, making her have to press down onto it to keep it from flying into her face. It was horrible. It was as simple as that. She had been able to ignore it for so long, but now, as Zelda saw how it hung limply in front of her face, the centimetres at the bottom being nothing but dead hair that would have earned her a comment about having to go to the hairdresser only a few months ago, she could not bear the idea of it being there for even a day longer. Knowing how the despair must be visible in her eyes as she spoke, Zelda turned towards Ganondorf. “I can’t take the weight of my hair anymore. I want it gone.”

It was not that Zelda would have expected for Ganondorf to look down at her in surprise and disbelief, but she still had to admit that he looked remarkably calm when faced with her outburst, merely cocking his head in response. “You mean that you want to cut it off?”

“Yes.” Zelda nodded. “I want it gone… I—it is a hazard that I cannot allow myself to keep. You saw how close we came to being stopped by someone holding onto it just yesterday. If there is anything I can do to keep that from happening again, I will do it in a heartbeat.”

For a moment, Zelda was almost convinced that Ganondorf was going to comment on everything she did not say. She would not have blamed him if he had done just that, not as Zelda could hear how her voice shook, effectively ruining her attempt at making it seem like the tears pressing against her resolve not to cry over what had happened were simply the residual fear of what might have happened rather than the result of the fact that the hair was still there, weighing her down.

Glancing from her and down towards the tips of her hair, Ganondorf opened his mouth, Zelda seeing how he was about to ask her about the real reason for her wanting it to be gone, but, the last second before he would have broken through the façade, Zelda saw him make the decision not to, altering his course with a little nod. “Okay. Give me a moment, then I will see if I can find something.” pushing himself up from the ground, Ganondorf left her side to instead walk over to where Link was still staring at the contents of the can of paella with a distant look in his eyes, the spoon that was sticking up from it seemingly abandoned, as Ganondorf stopped to look at him, Zelda seeing him try to find anything to say only to lack the words, Ganondorf instead continuing over to the rucksack.

She knew what he was searching for, but she still found herself unable to look away from the sun’s reflection in the blade of the little knife Impa had given them as Ganondorf sat down next to her again, gesturing towards her hair with his free hand. “Do you want me to cut it? I can’t promise you that it will look great, but I did use to cut Riju’s hair for her.”

Right then, Zelda could not have cared less about any of that. He had a knife that would hopefully be sharp enough to cut through her hair. Everything other than that was of little importance. “Yeah,” Zelda mumbled, “I would like for you to cut it.”

There was nothing about it that seemed like it would be a good idea, nothing about someone attempting to cut her hair with a knife that had never been intended for that purpose that should have made it easier for Zelda to breathe, and yet, that was exactly what happened, Zelda feeling the weight lift from her chest as she turned around, Ganondorf gathering her hair, holding onto it the same way she would have done when putting it up into a ponytail before turning on the Bunsen burner.

“How short do you want it to be?” Zelda could feel Ganondorf fumble with the knife as he held up the deadweight of hair for her to look at over her shoulder. “Is it all right to cut it just—”

There was no need for her to look at it. Any amount of hair still left on her head that would have allowed for her to brush it over her shoulders would still have been too long, so Zelda interrupted him, placing her hand at a point a couple of centimetres above her shoulders, just where she would be sure that it would not be able to reach down to touch her shoulders. “There.”

Ganondorf did not ask her if she was sure and for that, Zelda was grateful. Instead, Zelda felt how the hair fell to rest against her back as he let go of it again to grab onto a smaller strand of hair. There was a brief moment of tension as Zelda could tell that he struggled to figure out how to position the knife so that he would be pulling it away from her, but at last, Zelda could hear the sound of hair breaking, a little sting of pain running along her scalp as he cut through the lock of hair, and then it was gone, Ganondorf holding up the handful of hair for her to see. Zelda took it, looking down at the matted hairs. It looked old and serious, exactly the kind of image her father had tried to teach her to project onto the world, that of a daughter who was nothing less than a prodigy. In a way, Zelda supposed that her grades would have satisfied him, had it not been for the fact that she had cared for the wrong things, how she had fallen in love with technology and the scientific subjects rather than with politics.

“Are you still sure about this?” Ganondorf asked from behind her.

The answer was clear as Zelda clenched her fist around the lock, seeing how it became little more than a tiny clump of hair in her hand. “Yes.”

Little by little, the weight disappeared from her head, Ganondorf pausing from time to time to hand her the sections he cut off. It had to be horribly crooked, Zelda feeling how Ganondorf made a valiant attempt at maintaining the same length as he made his way towards her ears, the knife leaving him with no chances of achieving that. Finally, he tapped her on the shoulder, Zelda turning around. Already, the feeling of weightlessness was invigorating, the hair becoming even shorter by the lack of weight to pull it down towards the ground as she looked up at Ganondorf to see the uncertainty gradually leave his eyes as he looked down at her.

“Well,” Ganondorf said, dragging out the word a little, “it is not perfect, and I think that I could definitely have done a better job with some actual scissors, but it suits you.” he must have interpreted her reaching up to run her hand through it as doubt, for he repeated himself again as they both rose from the ground. “Really, it looks great on you. Do you want to see it?”

It would not have mattered what it had looked like. Even if she would have seen that he had chopped off all the hair on one side, leaving only a few short strands of hair on the other, it would have been a million times better than the feeling of the hair pulling her down, but Zelda still found herself walking over to the river bank along with him, hearing how Ganondorf held his breath as he held out his arm for her to hold onto as she leant in over the water.

With the waves disturbing the surface of the water, it was difficult to make out an exact reflection, but Zelda could still see everything that mattered as clearly as if she had been looking into a mirror. The hair was gone. There were no more tousled locks hanging down her back, no more having to be careful when moving through a forest not to have a strand of hair get stuck on any low-hanging branches and pull her back. There was no more of the heavy weight on her head or the hair that drowned out the rest of her. Instead, Zelda looked down to see a girl looking back up at her, eyes wide and with a face that spoke of the weeks of having struggled to eat enough, short blonde hair framing it all in a way she had not thought it would ever be capable of. It was uneven, Zelda able to separate the hair into the sections Ganondorf had divided it into before cutting it from how the length varied wildly from one to another, but it did not matter, not when none of the locks were long enough to reach her shoulders and threaten to drown out the rest of her again.

“Do you like it?” Ganondorf hesitated to ask the question, the doubt in his voice becoming even clearer as the seconds passed by without her saying anything.

Tearing her gaze away from the reflection, Zelda smiled up at him. “I love it! Thank you so much.”

He looked almost like he was about to say something as they stepped away from the river again, but the moment before Zelda could have sworn that he would have opened his mouth, perhaps to tell her about Riju—whether or not she too had had short hair or if it had been something completely different—Link called out for them, reminding them of the fact that the rest of the world was still there.

“The paella is as ready as it is going to get, you two!”

Turning back to look over his shoulder, Ganondorf responded with a kind of whole-hearted chuckle that Zelda had not thought she would ever hear again. “Yeah, yeah, we are coming! Just a moment!” his eyes sparkled as he faced her again, the chuckle seeping into his voice as he continued. “Come on. I am sure that Link has yet to notice your new hairstyle, so let’s hurry over to surprise him!”

It was an idea so childish that it was more than enough to make Zelda unable to resist the tug of a smile forming on her face. Throwing the hair into the river, the stream soon carried it far away from them as she and Ganondorf went over to join Link next to the rucksack, Link managing to look at her twice before noting the difference.

However, where Zelda had thought that he would, at most, acknowledge it with a short comment before going back to staring down at the contents of the can in his hand, Link visibly froze, his eyes going wide as he looked from her and over to Ganondorf, every last bit of colour leaving his face. “You—” Link stumbled over the word, “you cut your hair? Just now?”

There was nothing she could do to hide it, and for as much as Zelda wanted to make the gleam of something akin to sadness in his eyes disappear, she was not even certain she would have wanted to hide anymore, so she pulled at a strand of hair, making it stretch out to bounce back up, forming a little curl above her ear, as she let go. “Well, Ganondorf was the one who cut it for me. I doubt that I would have been able to make it not look like a disaster if I had done it myself, but, luckily, he volunteered to do it for me.”

Link did not respond, did not do anything to try to distract them from the way his gaze flickered from her as he turned to look at the river next to them, a tense silence falling over them as they passed the tin around. It was a weight on her shoulders, one that left Zelda with a new worry in her stomach, sitting there like a stone that made it difficult to bring herself to eat, but the hair was gone, and nothing would have been able to take away the joy of not having it touch her shoulder blades of her back, a deadweight that not only posed a danger to them but also served as a reminder of her past life. She wanted to reach out and try to ask Link what was wrong, but every time she would try to sneak a peek over at him, all she could see was the back of his head as Link ate in silence, looking out over the water and only acknowledging their presence when it was to accept the can as they handed it over to him. Despite it all, even if it was selfish, Zelda knew that she would not have made a different decision if she had been able to know that that would be his reaction before Ganondorf cut off her hair.

They finished the meal in silence, Link moving to shove the empty container back into the rucksack as they reached the end of its content, pausing for a moment before looking towards the horizon as he spoke. “I will take the first watch tonight. You two should try to get some sleep—we have a lot of distance to cover tomorrow if we do not want to be caught within the shadow of the Duelling Peaks.”

“Wait, Link.” scrambling to push herself off the ground, Zelda did not miss how Link visibly startled, but she could not allow that to stop her, not when she could already see how he was struggling to stay awake. “I should be the one to take the first watch. You and Ganondorf, neither of you got any sleep last night. I am the one here who can be the most alert, the one who would be the first to notice an approaching threat.”

It was the logical conclusion to the question of who would be the first to forgo sleep, but Link still shrugged it off like it was nothing, not looking over at her as he answered. “Maybe, but I would feel much better being able to know for a fact that everything is fine. Besides, I am still able to notice a possible threat in time for us to get up, just as I am the only one of us with an actual weapon.”

“But—”

She was interrupted by Ganondorf reaching out to take her hand. The look on his face was more than enough to make Zelda drop the issue, letting Ganondorf pull her a couple of steps away from Link. Behind them, Zelda could hear how the grass moved as he sat down, no doubt to pull his leg up to allow him to rest his chin on his knee the way she had seen him do so many times. There was no doubt in her mind that, whatever it was that he had been thinking about before, that was once again all he was focusing on, but Ganondorf still lead them a few metres away from Link before stopping, taking a deep breath that told her everything she needed to know. No matter what it was that had made Link react like that, Ganondorf knew the reason.

“Zelda,” Ganondorf began, letting the word trail off before adding, “Link knows what he is doing, trust me. If he thinks that he is able to take the first watch, then he is. Besides, I will make sure to take the next watch, so don’t worry, he will get a chance to sleep.”

It was not enough to take away the worry, not at all, but there was something about the way Ganondorf turned to look back over at Link that let Zelda know that she would not receive an answer to any question she could have asked about it. No matter what was happening, it was up to the two of them to figure it out, so even if Zelda could not quite muster up the fake cheerfulness that would have been necessary to joke about whether or not Link’s reactions had also been as quick as Ganondorf made it sound like they were back during their training, she did not argue with him. It was, after all, easier that way.

+++

Despite Link and Ganondorf having assured her that Link would make sure to get some sleep, as Zelda woke up the next day, it could hardly have been more obvious that that had not been the case. Not only were Link’s movements slower, more sluggish than she had ever seen before, Zelda catching him staring off into the distance more than a few times as they packed up what little belongings they had left and began to walk past the Duelling Peaks, it was also clear from the tension that hung in the air between him and Ganondorf that they had argued while she had been asleep. As Link almost tripped over a slight indent in the ground, Zelda did not need to know what had been the cause of the argument.

They walked in silence, Zelda almost opening her mouth to suggest that Link should perhaps not be the one to lead the way if it had been days since the last time he had slept, only for the sour mood around her to make her decide against voicing her concerns. There was no need to give them another reason to argue and make it all even worse, not even if Zelda had her concerns about how Link swayed lightly from side to side as he walked, his steps becoming unsure every time they would face even the slightest incline. So, instead, they kept on walking in the same formation, Link towards the front of their group, Ganondorf in the middle, and then Zelda towards the back, a spot that allowed her to look in front of her and see both how Link had to lean against the mountainside a couple of times and how Ganondorf had seemingly decided to take his frustrations out on a stick he picked up from the ground, using the knife they had been given by Impa to sharpen it, leaving behind a trail of little slivers of wood.

By midday, they had almost reached what Zelda deemed to be the middle of the mountain pass, Ganondorf pausing for a moment to shove the knife back into the rucksack before running to catch up with Link. As he twisted the stick in his hand, Zelda did catch how he looked to the side, staring intensely down into the water, but it still caught her off guard when he stopped, aiming at a spot in the river before lifting up the stick and throwing it directly into the water.

She must have let out a yelp, for the next thing Zelda knew, Link was at her side, a wild look on his face as he held onto her arm with a grip so tight that Zelda was certain it was going to leave bruises. “What!” he looked from her towards the river, still not giving any indication that he was going to let go. “What has happened? Who is in danger? Ganondorf?”

At the mention of his name, Ganondorf turned around, his eyebrows rising as he looked up at them, Zelda seeing how he took in the sight in front of him, how she had jumped a step backwards as he had thrown what she only now realised was supposed to be a spear into the water and how Link had rushed towards her, an embarrassed look flickering across his face as he crouched down to catch the spear before the current was able to drag it away. “Everything is fine, Link, uh—I am sorry. I should have told you about my plan, Zelda, but I was just trying to catch a fish. Everyone is perfectly fine.” he repeated the last part again, Zelda noticed, looking not at her, but instead staring intensely at Link as he did so.

Slowly, Link let go of her again, but Zelda could still hear how his heartbeat was a quick staccato in his chest, his breathing still shallow and fast as he nodded at him. “Okay, everyone’s all right, okay.” Link shook his head, a gesture that appeared to be meant more for himself than for any of them as he opened his eyes again, a tense smile on his face as he motioned towards Ganondorf’s spear. “It is a good idea, though—trying to catch a fish, I mean.”

“Yeah, or at least it would have been if it had not been for the fact that I failed to hit the fish.” with a grin that did not come close to reaching his eyes, Ganondorf pointed towards the tip of the makeshift spear. “That did not exactly get us anything to eat.”

Link laughed, an honest sound that Zelda did not realise she had been missing until that exact moment. “Well, if you remember what Dorian always said…”

“I will just have to keep on trying until I succeed,” Ganondorf finished, the smile becoming a bit more genuine, “yeah, I know that. I guess we just have to keep on going then.”

Rather than answering, Link nodded, but it was still more than enough for the atmosphere between them to have changed considerably as they continued on, walking in one big group rather than walking in a line with several metres between them.

Walking next to Link, with the mountainside on her other hand, Zelda could only try to guess what had been the reason for Link’s reaction to her yelp and the way everything had changed in a matter of minutes. There was no answer for her to find in Link’s face, especially not as he kept on looking over at Ganondorf, Zelda only seeing him send a short glance towards at her when she would look ahead for a while before quickly turning towards him. He was hiding something, that much was clear, but if asking him about it would mean risking going back to the tense silence that had been with them for the entire morning, Zelda was more than willing to accept the secrets.

Slowly, the sun began to disappear behind the horizon, leaving them in darkness as they approached the end of the passage. Stepping out from where they had been sheltered from the wind by the mountain, the coldness of the wind brushing past her neck took Zelda by surprise, making her stop for a moment to try to grow used to it while Ganondorf and Link stepped away from the river bank to begin to prepare for yet another night of having to watch out for the Yiga Clan, but she still moved over to stand next to them as they leant in over the rucksack.

“Link,” Ganondorf whispered the words, but as Zelda slowly moved towards them, careful not to let them see her, it was still enough for her to overhear it, “you should try to get some rest. It isn’t healthy for you to carry on like this, you—”

“It is fine. Really, trust me. I am going to be just fine.” Link brushed the worries aside, Zelda able to decide the exact moment he became aware of her presence from how he clenched his jaw, Ganondorf turning to follow his line of sight, emotions flickering across his face at a rate that did not allow for Zelda to name them all as she went over to crouch down next to them.

Trying her best to pretend that she did not notice how they both exchanged long looks as she joined them, Zelda spoke up, making sure that her voice did not shake. “I will take the first watch. I… both of you need to get some rest, and I have yet to be the one of us to look out for threats. I will take the first watch, and that is final.”

It was very much not final. Zelda saw that, Ganondorf and Link clearly agreeing on that one point even if she could still see how they disagreed on everything else.

Shaking his head at her, Ganondorf looked almost like he was trying to figure out how to best tell a little child that they would have to go to sleep as he looked from her and over towards Link before focusing on her again. “No, you need to rest, Zelda—”

“Well, so do both of you—” Zelda tried to cut in, only for Link to interrupt her.

“Ganondorf is right, Zelda. If you want to be able to figure out how to access your powers, you are probably going to need a lot of sleep.”

“We don’t know if that is how it works—”

“But we also don’t know that it is not.” Ganondorf joined in on Link’s argument, and with that, Zelda knew that she had lost, Ganondorf seemingly reaching the same conclusion as he moved over to sit next to her before continuing. “Besides, you are the one who knows how to get to the Temple of Time, and I am sorry to say this, Zelda, but I would feel way more confident letting you lead the way if I know that you are actually fully awake as you make the decisions.”

He was trying to turn it into a rational argument. Zelda could see what he was doing, what both he and Link were trying to achieve, making it seem like their attempts at convincing her not to lift her part of the burden that was ensuring that they would all reach the Great Plateau in one piece was about something other than what she decided to be a misplaced feeling of protectiveness. It would have made sense if there was a physical threat, if one of the Yiga Clan members had found them. If that were to happen, Zelda would have understood that without powers and without experience with a weapon, she would be the weakest of them in a battle, but this, however, the question of getting her to give up on her part of the burden, there, Zelda could not see any rational argument for what they were trying to do.

She was almost about to tell them that when she noticed the shiny look of tears in Ganondorf’s eyes, and just as she had felt so sure in her conviction not to let them convince her a moment before, Zelda suddenly knew that it was an argument she had to let them win. Lowering her shoulders as much as the guilt allowed her to, Zelda bowed her head and let Ganondorf pull her towards him, leaning her head against his shoulder. “All right,” she said, “if you are sure that you can handle getting so little sleep, then… that is what we will do.”

“I am sure that I can. Don’t worry about it.” Link stood up, and without giving Ganondorf another chance to protest, he left them to instead move over to sit on the rock that stuck out of the ground.

Leaning against him, Zelda could feel the rise and fall of Ganondorf’s chest, feel the exact moment he gave up on trying to argue with Link, instead looking down towards a spot on his chest.

It took a moment for Zelda to realise that he was not merely inspecting the tunic for any signs of dirt, something that would have been a laughable idea in the first place with how Zelda had already stained the back of her clothes green after having slept in the grass. Instead, he was looking down at where a little bulge in the fabric revealed that there was something underneath.

Ganondorf must have seen that she was looking over at him, for, without uttering a word, he pulled out a necklace, angling it towards her.

It looked nothing like the necklace Paya had worn, a fact that instantly made Zelda rule out the chance of it being something he had been given back in Kakariko Village. The way he was holding it, careful, like it could break at any moment, would already have been enough to tell her that, and, deep down, Zelda was sure of just where it had come from, but she still found herself looking back up at him, not daring to outright ask him but knowing that the question was written across her face.

“It would have been her birthday.” in just the few seconds it took him to say the sentence, Ganondorf’s voice had become thick, breaking as he shook his head. ”Riju, I mean. She would have turned seventeen today, and I—” he wiped away the tears, but it was a battle he could not win, not as Zelda saw how the tears continued to steam down his face despite his best efforts of hiding it from her.

There was nothing for her to do, and as she sat there, separated from Link by only about ten metres but still completely incapable of thinking of anything she could say to take away a bit of the pain she had seen in his eyes as he had looked over at her, Zelda was acutely aware of the way Ganondorf looked from the necklace and over at her, but she still had to try, and so, she reached out to place her hand on top of his, making sure that she would not accidentally touch the necklace. “I am sorry.”

It was almost laughable, the idea that that was really all she had to say in response to his pain. They had been travelling together for weeks and she had known about Riju for multiple of those; she should have known that there would come a time where the memory of her would return, either in the same way that Zelda could still recall her father or as a reminder brought on by their attempts at keeping track of time, and still, the only thing she could think of was to state the obvious, that she was sorry. They were all sorry, both for the fact that they had lost everything twice and for the fact that they had survived both times. To say that she was sorry for the specific fact that Ganondorf’s little sister was not there with them should have been meaningless, and yet, Ganondorf managed to smile through the tears as he looked over at her.

“So am I. But…” he shrugged, pausing for a moment before pulling the necklace over his head, “it will—well, it won’t be fine, but it will get better. Here, you can have this.”

He held out the necklace for her to take, and it felt like the world came to a stop around them.

Zelda could look at the necklace. She could take in the large plastic beads and the worn look of it and see that it was most likely a gift from a small child, a gift that was several years old by now, but clearly still something Ganondorf had chosen to bring along and keep hidden. There was no doubt about it having been a gift from Riju, not as he continued to hold onto it, the necklace swinging lightly in the wind that brushed past them.

What had she looked like when she had given it to him? Running a hand through her hair, Zelda tried to imagine a little girl, maybe eight or nine, with the same brilliant red hair as Ganondorf, but all she saw was Link’s expression as he had looked over at her after she had got her hair cut.

She looked back up at Ganondorf. He was still smiling at her, still holding out the necklace towards her, but behind the smile and the twinkle in his eyes, Zelda could see something else. It was so clear what the necklace meant to him, and still, she could not bring herself to actually reach out and take it, instead gesturing towards herself like there was any doubt about what he had meant. “Do you mean that I…?”

“Yeah,” Ganondorf nodded, his smile not fading for even a moment, “I want you to have this.”

That made the decision for her. Reaching out to let him lower the necklace down into her outstretched hand, Zelda saw how it formed a little pile of plastic beads and elastic in her hand, having to take a deep breath before she pulled it over her head. It settled next to her own necklace, the plastic beads being much lighter than the pendant depicting the Hyrulean loftwing, and despite how she had thought that she would have to fake it, the smile she sent Ganondorf was sincere. “Thank you. It means a lot.”

If Ganondorf had tried to hide his relieved sigh, he was not doing a great job at it, but as he nodded back down at her, both of them leaning against each other, Zelda was sure that he had not tried to either. A few metres away from them, Link would be keeping watch for the next couple of hours, and although Zelda knew that she should have gone over to him to try to get him to talk about what the problem with her new hairstyle was, she could not bring herself to move. The necklace might have been light, almost weightless, but she felt incredibly heavy as the sun finally set towards the horizon, making her all too willing to give in to the temptation of letting that conversation wait for another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, they are left to make their way through a deserted Hyrule once again, a journey that is accompanied by the burden of knowing about the cycle and their destiny.


	18. Chapter 18

It must have rained during the night, Zelda waking up to the smell of petrichor clinging to the ground around her and a jacket thrown over her that fell off as she pushed herself up into a sitting position, trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes. Hearing the soft sound of someone breathing next to her, Zelda looked to the side, but where she had expected to see Ganondorf, the one who had curled up on the ground next to her, the Master Sword lying less than a metre away from his hand, was Link. He stirred, mumbling something that Zelda could not make sense of, before curling up around himself again.

Link had got some sleep. It was the exact thing she had hoped would be the case when she had gone to sleep, but as Zelda stood up, she could not ignore the feeling of there being something wrong, the sight of Ganondorf sitting on the stone where they had left Link the night before not doing much to quell the anxiety.

Ganondorf did not turn to look over at her as she sat down next to him, but from the way he tensed for a moment before relaxing again, Zelda knew that he had noticed her long before he smiled at her.

“You should have woken me, you know.” Zelda elbowed him in the side, but she could already hear that her attempt at a saying it in a light-hearted tone of voice fell flat, proving to be a complete failure as she continued. “I get that Link said that I had to sleep and all that, but I could have helped you two as well.”

“I know that.” Ganondorf averted his eyes, avoiding all her attempts at establishing eye contact to instead look out over the lake. “It was just a matter of it taking an eternity for me to convince Link to get some rest, so by the time he had finally gone to sleep, the sun was almost up. At that point, I would not have been able to sleep anyway, so waking you up would just have been dumb. Besides, you looked like you needed rest.”

The attempt at making the argument appear rational fell away with that last comment. Finding herself instinctively reaching for the necklace he had given her, Zelda knew what he was not telling her, what both of them had failed to tell her ever since she had first met them. Part of her wanted to get it over with, to tell him that she had realised what was going on, but as Link turned in his sleep, Zelda seeing how he reached out for his sword, not lying still until his hand was resting on the hilt of it, she knew that it was not really a confrontation she had the courage to pursue. If that was how they wanted it to be, for everything to remain unsaid, then she could go along with that.

“All right.” Zelda nodded at Ganondorf, the motion feeling stilted and strange without the weight of her hair to drag it down or the long locks to move against her back. “In that case, I suppose I should thank you for that.”

Ganondorf was about to open his mouth when the sound of mumbling alerted them both to the fact that Link had woken up behind them. Spinning around to look over at him, Zelda saw how Link blinked twice as he sat up, rubbing his head, his eyes widening a little as he looked over at them, hand instantly searching for the sword and clutching it tightly as he rose from the ground.

“What?” his voice was still throaty from sleep. “What time is it? Should we not have left this place already?”

“Relax.” Ganondorf held up his hands, a warm smile on his face as Link looked from him and over towards Zelda before finally focusing on him again. “Everything is fine. I was just talking with Zelda for a moment. We had plenty of time to wait for you to wake up.”

“Oh.” Link did not loosen his grasp on the Master Sword at all, but at least he did not hold it like he was simply waiting for an enemy to sneak up on him anymore, instead allowing it the hang by his side as he turned to look at the road in front of them. “Well, I am awake now, so we should probably get going as soon as possible.”

That, Zelda could not argue with, so after a quick breakfast eaten in silence, they set out for the next stop on the path to the Temple of Time. It was easier to think of it that way, as a spot they would have to pass, a place where they might spend the night, but not giving it more meaning than that, Zelda decided. She could have sat down to try to think about what the fact that they were heading towards Deya Village might mean for her, why she had to push away the memory of Paya telling her about her life there every time they surfaced to keep herself from losing the last bit of strength she had left, but she knew that the answer to that question would have hurt just as much as it had done to leave her behind in the first place. By refusing to think about the fact that they might walk past Paya’s childhood home by the end of the day, she could keep herself from succumbing to the thoughts of whether or not she could have done more, if Paya and the others were really safe, if Dorian had been able to defend the village or at least buy them enough time to escape.

Zelda knew that it was obvious to anyone looking at her that her plan was not working nearly as well as she wanted it to, that, despite her best efforts, her shoulders were gradually rising as she lead the way across the hills that filled the landscape, leading them away from the roar of the river, but no one mentioned it. As Zelda looked over at the two others, she could not even bring herself to feel relief that they left her alone with her thoughts, not when it was clear to her what the reason for it was.

Walking between her and Ganondorf, Link walked with the expression and body language of someone who was expecting an attack any second, hand never straying from the hilt of his sword as he followed along behind her, keeping his gaze fixed on the ground the entire time. That was something Zelda was grateful for, the fact that he would not suddenly look up to notice that she was watching him. For that was what she did.

Trying to remind herself to look ahead to make sure that they were going the right way, Zelda found herself glancing back at Link every other second. Maybe it was because it was easier to convince herself to only worry about his problems than it was to focus on the fact that she could see where the ground began to incline, leading down into the valley where Deya Village was located, in the distance, see that they would undoubtedly manage to reach the village long before nightfall, and that she knew that they were so far away from the next village that it would be outright foolish not to stay there for the night. No matter the explanation, fact was that Zelda found herself devoting the energy she would otherwise have spent on fiddling with the hem of the tunic she had been given by Paya and trying to convince herself that she could still sense Paya’s atmosphere in it, the way she might have folded it before giving it to her all those days ago, to noting how Link alternated between clenching and unclenching his right fist, the left one constantly resting on the sword at his side as they moved up the hills. At least, that was what she wanted to believe, but if Zelda was honest, she knew that it was only a fraction of her thoughts that stayed with their group rather than focusing on Paya, Impa, Purah, Dorian, and the rest of the inhabitants of Kakariko Village and where they might have gone.

Still, even when distracted, Zelda could not have missed the way Link slowly began to relax as they moved further away from the river. The change was not great, only visible in the way Link began to look up from the ground, taking in the sight around him as they slowed down when the hills grew steeper, but after having watched him hold onto his sword like his life depended on it for the last few hours, it was more than enough for Zelda to catch it, storing it away in her mind for a point in time where she might find the courage to ask him about the reason for it. As it was, though, Zelda soon found that she could no longer observe him as closely as she had done before, not unless she wanted to risk him noticing her.

It happened a moment later, Link looking up at her, waving at her before she got the chance to hide that she had been watching him.

Running up the hill, Link did not sound out of breath at all as he reached her, matching her pace as they walked along the ridge of the hill. “Hey, Zelda.” Link bumped his shoulder against hers, but it lacked the energy she would have expected to see. “How are you doing?

Zelda did not give herself a chance to think about what the honest answer to the question might have sounded like, already shrugging as Ganondorf ran up to join them as well. ”Oh, you know, a bit tired, but otherwise, I feel pretty all right, considering the circumstances.”

Link let out a barking laugh, letting her know that he knew what that answer meant. “I think we all feel like that. I just can’t fight this feeling of something not being quite right. Do you know what I mean?” he must have interpreted their lack of an answer as a no, for Link began to explain, Zelda noting how he only used his right hand to gesture, the left one still resting against the hilt of the Master Sword. “It is just this, I don’t know—it is a bit like when you touch an electric fence, like there is something that tries its best to tell me that there is something wrong but I just cannot name exactly what it is.” Link raised a brow as he turned to look over at Ganondorf. “Do you feel it as well?”

Ganondorf hesitated for a second too long for Zelda to be able to use his answer to quell the rising sense of dread in her stomach. Moving over to put his arm around Link’s shoulders, however, it looked almost like he was trying to mitigate exactly that second of silence as he pulled Link closer towards him. “No, I don’t, but even if I did, I know that we will be fine. You have both me and Zelda here to protect you should anything happen, and I have several bruises that says that you would be fully capable of defending yourself as well even if that was not the case. Relax, Link.”

Despite not looking entirely convinced, Link sent Ganondorf a long look before finally letting go of his sword. Taking a deep breath, Link returned the one-armed embrace, leaving Zelda to walk along next to them, unable to entirely ignore the feeling of being left out as Link mumbled something she could not hear that made Ganondorf laugh.

It was not the fact that she was the only one of them who had yet to figure out a way to defend herself that made her feel like Ganondorf and Link did not include her as they continued to talk with each other while they slowly made their way towards Deya Village. As Zelda tried to push her feelings aside for a moment to try to think rationally about what was happening, she was aware of the fact that it did not mean anything, that, most likely, Ganondorf and Link were not excluding her at all, that the fact that she had fallen behind, walking a few steps behind them, only occasionally interrupting their hushed conversation with directions, probably had more to do with herself than with them. But those moments of clarity were gone in the blink of an eye, leaving her with the feeling of having been left out exactly because they all knew that she would not be able to keep her part of the promise Ganondorf had just made.

She tried again. Being careful not to let them catch onto what she was doing, an effort she could most likely have spared herself given how Ganondorf and Link appeared to be too absorbed by their conversation to look back at her, Zelda tried to dim her senses, instead reaching out towards the spirit world, willing herself to hear what the hushed voices were saying.

There was something. Zelda felt it almost like a thread in her hand, her abilities being connected to her by it. Her pulse raced as she tugged at it, and, already, Zelda could feel the anticipation build in her as she began to pull it closer towards herself. In just a moment she would make sure that she would be able to defend both herself as well as Ganondorf and Link from anything and everything. She would have the answer to the question of how they would have to go about bringing an end to the cycle and know why her ancestors had passed the cycle on to them by refusing to let it devastate their own time. Zelda pulled with all her might, finally sensing that her powers were within her reach.

The thread broke. From one moment to the next, the chorus of voices in her head became a whisper again, Zelda feeling how the thread disappeared in a heartbeat as she opened her eyes to face the realisation that she had failed yet again. The powers were still out of her reach, and though she had been closer to harnessing them than she had ever been before, so close that she could feel the warmth of it flow through her, to think that that would make any difference from the time where she had not even known that they existed at all in the event of an attack was foolish.

Zelda could hear Link let out a laugh in front of her, soon joined by Ganondorf as well, but as the sun continued its path across the sky, she did not feel like there was any reason to smile at all.

She was not sure what the worst part about it was, whether it was the fact that she was still the only one without any means of defending herself or that neither Ganondorf nor Link appeared to notice her sour mood, leaving her to walk behind them, barely able to resist a childish urge to kick at the little stones at her feet to see them fly through the air. It was not fair. It was as simple as that, and still, that was the thought Zelda found herself unable to let go of. It was not fair. Everyone had died and everyone would continue to die, and the powers that would possibly have allowed her to stop that cycle were not there. Closing her eyes, Zelda tried to force the memory of Dorian to appear, but his voice was wrong, Zelda only remembering half of what he had said about his wife. If she wanted to be able to access her magic, she had to focus on the positive reasons for her wanting to wield that power, to think of those she wanted to protect rather than those she wished to destroy. That had been the explanation she had convinced herself was the answer to her pleas for help, and still, no matter how much she tried to think about Link, even as she pictured how Ganondorf had jumped in front of Link to shield him from the attack that had instead torn his sleeve and left him with a long, red line down his arm back at Hyrule National Museum and how the only thing she had wished to do in that moment had been to help, there was nothing as Zelda reached out into the darkness, nothing but silence and the warmth that would constantly escape her grasp, moving just out of reach each time she thought that she might have reached it.

“Zelda? Is everything all right?”

She opened her eyes to find that both Ganondorf and Link had stopped to look back at her. With how the concern was written across their faces, the only place for Zelda to look that would not have been accompanied by the shame of realising that they had noticed her struggle was down at an indeterminable point in front of her feet, which was exactly the point she found herself staring at, forcing herself not to look up as Link walked over to stand next to her.

He did not allow her lack of acknowledgement to deter him, Zelda would give him that, and if she had not spent too much time trying to force her powers to manifest, she might have found the energy to send him a smile. As it was, however, Zelda could only stand there, knowing that Ganondorf had walked over to join them as well from the way the grass and gravel moved, but not finding the courage to meet any of their gazes.

The silence would no doubt have lasted for ages if they had made the decision to wait for her to say anything, so Zelda was grateful as Link broke it. Stepping lightly from side to side, it seemed like he was trying to determine whether or not to take a step towards her before giving up on the decision to instead talk to her from where he stood. “Zelda… I—I know that you are going to figure out how you are meant to use your powers in no time. You might just have to give yourself a bit more time than you think you need and allow it to come to you when you are ready.”

Zelda could have looked up at Link and asked him what made him think that her powers would ever come to her if she gave up the fight of trying to manifest it. She could have tilted her head to the side and asked what their plan would be if they managed to reach the Temple of Time without her having found her powers. That, or she could have asked how many times he and Ganondorf would have to risk their lives to save hers before they would be forced to realise that it was a risk to have someone among them who did not have a way to protect herself the same way they had their training, the Master Sword, and Ganondorf’s spear.

She could have asked him any of those questions. Zelda knew that she would have seen his attempt at remaining optimistic disappear from one moment to the next if she had done it, so she did not. Instead, she forced a grimace onto her face that could perhaps be described as a smile if the person in front of her was able to ignore her clenched fists and the way she knew it did not reach her eyes. “Thank you. I will keep that in mind.”

It was not possible to tell whether or not Link honestly believed her as he returned the smile with one of his own, albeit one that seemed much more genuine than hers, before continuing with a bounce in his step that soon carried him a couple of metres ahead of her and Ganondorf or if he had noticed the lie and had decided to let it pass by without a comment. She could undoubtedly have figured out what was the case, but as Zelda looked at Link walking in front of her, his arms swinging at his sides rather than clutching his sword, she did not want to. It was not as much that she did not want to risk the conversation continuing as it was a matter of her not wishing to be the one to ruin what little hope he could summon for him.

Perhaps it was for the better that it was not as much the conversation that Zelda had feared as it was knowing that she was the reason that Link could have fallen back into his behaviour from before, for Link had barely moved out of earshot before Ganondorf looked down at her.

She could see what he was doing, how he was searching for something to say, but she stayed silent. There was no reason to outright encourage him to try to continue the conversation.

However, despite her silence, it did not take Ganondorf many seconds to let out a short sigh before talking to her under his breath. “You know that you can talk to me, right? It doesn’t matter what it is about, you can always talk to me about it if something is making you sad.”

Without thinking, Zelda found herself reaching up towards the necklace he had given her. A moment later she could have yelled at herself for that, but by then, it was already too late.

From the way his voice gained an edge of something else, something akin to both sadness and guilt, it was clear that Ganondorf had noticed her reaction, Zelda looking over at him to find that he was looking directly at her face as he paused for a moment before stopping to pull her into a hug.

“Zelda.” Ganondorf said her name like it was something he had to remind himself of, but at least he said it, making Zelda able to lean into the hug as he continued. “I know that it is unlikely to change much for you here in this moment, but I want you to know that I am aware that she is gone. She is gone, you are here, and I would never wish for you to feel like a replacement for her. Because you are not that, do you understand?” placing a hand on both her shoulders, Ganondorf broke the embrace to lean back, still having to lean down to make it so that their eyes were on the same level. “You are you, you are Zelda, the person who almost attacked me with a broken bottle the first time she saw me, the one who was always able to think of a plan, who was able to repair my phone and give me back my pictures of my sister, and who risked her own life to make sure that Link and I could get to safety. You are not my sister, and I am sorry that I gave you that necklace if it made you feel that way, because that was not what I was thinking as I gave it to you.” he ran a hand through his hair, and Zelda could almost hear how he tried to think of what she needed to hear. It was an impossible task, given how Zelda would have told him in a heartbeat if she had known the answer to the question herself, but he tried nevertheless, gesturing towards the necklace as he did. “I gave it to you because I wanted for you to have it. Not because I wanted to pretend that you are my sister, not because I thought that it would feel like she was not truly gone if you wore it, but because I wanted for you to have that necklace, because I wanted to give you something.”’

He fell silent, but Zelda did not need to look up him to know that he was waiting for her to say something, to nod and say that she understood. In that moment, there was nothing she wanted to do more than just that, to smile and tell him that he did not have to worry about her, that she was well aware of the fact that she was not and would never be like Riju to him, but even as she tried to open her mouth to force out the words, Zelda could not bring herself to say anything. Rather than words or anything she might have said that would have made him feel even slightly better as they walked towards Deya Village, surrounded by chaos and heartbreak, it was the question of whether or not the shirt and the sand seal cuddly toy that he had given her less than a day after meeting her for the first time were still intact in Kakariko Village or if they had been ruined in the attack that whirled through her mind, the memory of the feeling of weightlessness that had accompanied the moment he had cut off her hair replacing it, both of the memories soon becoming the guilt of Link having looked at her like he had seen a ghost, not smiling or commenting on her new hairstyle, standing completely still as he stared at her.

The question left her mouth before she had even realised it. “Ganondorf, do you know what Aryll looked like?”

The way he froze, his gaze flickering towards Link, told her everything she needed to know, but Zelda still held her breath as Ganondorf cleared his throat before answering. “I have not exactly seen pictures of her, but from what Link told me, she... she did look a bit like you with the short blonde hair, and, well, everything.”

It was the answer she had expected to receive, but Zelda still found herself unable to look away from Link, staring so intensely at him that it felt like it should have burnt a hole in the back of his jacket as she tried to guess what he was thinking. If she looked like Aryll, it was no wonder that seeing her after the impromptu haircut had made him freeze. That much, Zelda could understand, but it still left her with the question of why he had not said anything to her. Granted, there was nothing she could have done to undo the haircut, but he could still have told her. She would have understood, Zelda had to believe that, had to believe that no matter what Link’s reasons for only telling her about his sister several days after he told Ganondorf and now not informing her that she looked too much like his little sister were, it could not have been that he did not trust her, or, at the very least, she had to believe that any such fear would not turn out to have solid proof behind it. She had to run over to tell him that she had not had any idea, but Zelda could not bring herself to do more than stumble forwards, feeling like her knees were going to buckle below her any second.

“Zelda.” Ganondorf brought her back to reality, reaching out to touch her elbow before she would have stepped into a puddle of mud, slowly guiding her around it. “I know that it will be fine. Just give him a bit of time. He had not expected for you to cut off all the hair right then. It was just shock and surprise, I promise you. Besides, if anyone is to blame here, it is me. I should have known that he would look at you and see her. Just give it time.”

Give it time. It was a piece of advice Zelda had heard far too many times already. It must have been clear from a single glance at her face that she did not wish to wait a second longer to receive the answers to all her questions, for Zelda could see how Ganondorf tilted his head slightly to the side as she looked up at him.

“Zelda? Is anything—”

She held up her hand, the gesture silencing him instantly. Towards the back of her mind, Zelda could realise that fact that she should probably have thanked him for that, telling him that she was grateful for how he gave her the chance to speak before she would lose the courage to do so, but she could only barely keep herself from swallowing back the words again. It felt like it would be the only time she would get the chance to tell him, like it was a matter of seconds before the moment would have passed and with it, the courage she clung to as she opened her mouth. “I… it is fine. I can manage this, but… there is something else I want to tell you, something I have been wanting to tell someone for a long time.”

Ganondorf must have guessed what she was about to say, Zelda seeing the glimmer of realisation in his eyes, but he did not take that moment away from her, merely smiling down at her. “All right. What is it?”

Her heart was beating madly in her chest, Zelda picturing how it was screaming at her not to tell him anything, but she continued on despite the feeling of dread and fear that she knew deep down was baseless, a knowledge that did not do much to stop her voice from shaking. “I know that this might not be the best time to tell you with everything that has just happened, but if something were to happen to…” she shook her head, “I know that I should say any of us, but I am aware of the fact that, if I died, you and Link would probably already know what I am about to say—please don’t interrupt me, I get that you were about to tell me that I am important too, and trust me, I am not going to argue with you about that, but I have to say this now, before I lose the courage to do so, and I want you to hear this from me, even if you have already figured it out on your own.” Zelda took a deep breath, already knowing that it would not do anything to calm her frantically beating heart. “I—”

A scream tore through the air, breaking through the silence between them.

The moment disappearing into thin air, Zelda and Ganondorf spun towards the source of the sound just in time to see how Link had lost his footing, the rock that tumbled down the hill letting them know the exact reason for that.

It happened slowly and so quickly that Zelda could only watch it happen, Link reaching out to grab onto something, finding nothing, hitting the ground and beginning to roll down the side of the hill, towards Deya Lake. For a moment, it looked almost like he was able to stop himself, holding onto a piece of grass, but then he continued, rolling faster and faster as the incline of the slope grew steeper, landing in the water of Deya Lake with a splash.

Holding her breath, Zelda felt how the seconds became longer as both she and Ganondorf stood there, unable to move, talk, or do anything other than stare down at where Link was lying just a few metres from the shore where the water was still shallow and the current mild, waiting for him to push himself to his feet and wave up at them.

Only, he did not. Counting her heartbeats to make sure that it was not merely something she was imagining, the feeling of terror making the seconds grow longer, Zelda watched as Link, rather than moving up and away from the water’s edge, curled up around himself. The sword was still at his side, and for a fraction of a second, Zelda’s stomach twisting painfully, the thought that he might have been hurt in the fall, that having let the sword rest against his hip had been the mistake that would make the difference between life and death, that it had slipped out of its sheath on his way down, making her have to force herself to continue to breathe, but the water around Link remained clear, the mud he had whirled up upon hitting the ground being the only substance that formed a cloud around him. There was no trace of blood, no scream that would have told her that he was injured, and still, Link did not get up again.

“I…” she could hear how Ganondorf snapped out of the trance they had both found themselves in from one moment to the next, already beginning to run down the slope as he called back towards her, “I have to go help him!”

Ganondorf had already reached Link by the time Zelda thought to move. Reaching down to wrap his arms around Link’s chest, Ganondorf began to move backwards, dragging Link out of the water. He could not have been in there for more than perhaps half a minute, not nearly enough for it to already be a matter of life and death, and still, Zelda came to a halt next to them, Ganondorf slowly lowering Link’s head down to rest on the ground, the water dripping from his hair to form a little puddle around him, to see that Link did not show any indication of being aware that they were there or even that he was no longer in the water, still curled up around himself as he shook violently.

“What should we do?” Zelda looked over at Ganondorf, seeing her own panic reflected in his eyes. “We can’t just let him lie here like this, but…” she let the sentence trail off but as Link gasped between them, rolling over to lie on his back as he coughed twice, the force behind it making his body convulse, there was no need for her to finish the sentence.

“I—I don’t know!” running his hand through his hair, Ganondorf’s voice gained a panicked edge. “We, uh—I don’t know!”

They did not get a chance to discuss it further, not as Link opened his eyes. Even from where she was standing, Zelda could see the fear in his eyes, see how his gaze darted from side to side, seemingly unaffected by the sun above them at them as he reached out towards something, his hand moving across the grass in quick, unprecise movements as he continued to gasp for air, breathing in and out so quickly that it looked like he was trying to take in more oxygen than his body could manage, his voice shrill and trembling as he looked up at them. “Gan? Zelda? I—”

With how much he shook, the words were almost incomprehensible, Zelda having to crouch down next to him to catch what he said as he interrupted himself, the tense muscles of his upper arms telling her that he was trying to sit up, his efforts amounting to nothing more than a little jerky motion as he fell back against the ground. She should perhaps have stopped to think things through. Maybe that would have told her that her instinct was not the correct one, but as she looked down at him, all Zelda could do was to reach out to help him, to try to help him regain his balance and help him up from the ground.

Shaking his head at her, Link made her freeze with her hand hovering just a hand’s breadth away from him as a crawled away from them, only managing to move a few centimetres before falling back onto the ground. “I am fine.” Link spoke quickly, his voice broken by the wheezing sound of his own breathing. “I’m fine, I just fell. Give me a moment and then—” he swallowed thickly, “then everything will be all right.”

Zelda might have been tempted to believe him. After all, if he was right and everything really would be fine if they just gave him a moment, it would mean that it was nothing that they could not fix by waiting. However, the way Link continued to lie there, not moving to get up, still shaking and coughing, made it clear that that was not the case, that it was not something they could just wait for to pass.

“What should we do?” Zelda could hear how the panic spread to her own voice as well, see how her hands shook as she looked towards Ganondorf for answers. “We can’t just let him lie here, can we?”

“No.” Ganondorf’s voice was still shaking, but as he closed his eyes for a moment, Zelda saw the way he pushed away every last bit of uncertainty and doubt to look down at Link with a steely gaze. “We cannot. We have to get him to calm down for a moment and make sure that he will not become too cold—I fear that his jacket is a little too good at holding on to water for this kind of weather.” as if to prove Ganondorf’s point, a gust of wind rushed past them as he leant in closer towards Link, his voice dropping to a whisper as Link finally opened his eyes again to look directly up at him. “Link, I need you to try to calm your breathing—just try to copy me, all right?”

It was not possible to guess whether the little jerk of Link’s head was a sign that he had heard him or if it was a shiver from the cold, but at least Zelda saw how he looked up at Ganondorf, his flickering gaze becoming a bit calmer as Ganondorf began to breathe in and out, counting in between the exhalations and inhalations.

There was nothing for her to do, nothing Zelda could do that would have made the situation any better, so she simply sat there, watching as Link first continued with the panicked breathing, the wheezing sound that accompanied every breath made even louder by the lack of sounds around them, until he finally began to follow the rhythm of Ganondorf’s breathing. It was slow, slower than what Zelda could imagine was comfortable after having just fallen into the water, but she still found herself following along as well, careful not to let either of them see her as she looked over at Ganondorf, breathing in and out along with them. At first, it felt as if nothing had changed, and she supposed that that was the case as well. After all, the fact that she tried her best to breathe slower and more evenly than before was not something that would grant her the miracle she needed, not something that would change what had happened, and still, as the minutes passed, the convulsions coming to an end, Link visibly relaxing on the ground, the tense lines that had run along every last muscle a second before erased, Zelda could not deny that it made it easier to focus, easier to try to think about what had happened. Rationally, as the roar of thoughts dimmed, not quite disappearing completely, but no longer as overwhelming as they had been before, Zelda knew exactly where she had seen the tactic used before, but she pushed the thought aside. It was better to focus on the fact that it had worked than on what it would mean for her or the fact that she could already imagine how her father would have frowned at her if he had been there to listen to her thoughts.

As the sound of breathing grew less loud, becoming little more than background noise around them, Ganondorf stopped counting aloud though it was still clear that he followed the same rhythm of in, hold, exhale, hold as he reached out, Link accepting the offer for help without hesitation, grabbing on to his hand to let Ganondorf pull him up and allowing him keep the hand on his shoulder as Link sat there for a moment, his hands on his knees as he continued to breathe in and out for another couple of seconds before looking up.

“Thank you.” Link’s voice was hoarse as he spoke, his clothes still clinging to him, water dripping from his hair, but he did manage a weak smile as he looked up at Ganondorf. “I… I am sorry for… that.”

She should have said something, should have returned the smile and told him that there was nothing to apologise for, but the words died in her throat, leaving Zelda unable to do anything other than sit there and watch as Ganondorf shook his head in response to Link’s words.

“There’s nothing to apologise for, Link. I am just happy that you are all right.”

It looked like Link was about to say something, perhaps to insist on apologising again, but before he got the chance to utter a single word, a cloud had moved in front of the sun, the wind that swept across the landscape growing in intensity.

Feeling how the hairs on her arms rose to try to keep some of the warmth around her close to her body, Zelda immediately wrapped her arms around herself, but even as Link did the same thing, it was clear that with his soaked clothes and the energy he must have burnt through in only a couple of minutes, it would not be enough, his lips already stained slightly blue as he began to shake again.

“You are cold.” Ganondorf stated, not leaving Link any room for debate about the truth of the statement as he pulled off his own jacket, throwing it over to him.

Link looked down at it for a moment, visibly debating with himself whether or not to accept it, before another gust of wind forced him to wrap the jacket around himself. Even then, he continued to shake. It was not enough.

Looking up at the sky, Zelda could see the grey clouds in the horizon. It was not a matter of having to wait a couple of hours for the bad weather to pass, and with how Link was already growing paler and paler, Zelda glancing over at Ganondorf to see that he too was looking at how goosebumps were beginning to spread across every centimetre of bare skin, climbing up Link’s throat to reach his cheeks, all three of them had to be aware of the fact that they could not stay out there for a moment longer, not unless they wanted to risk Link’s health. And still, as the silence grew, it was clear that neither of them wanted to be the one to state the obvious. It was foolish, Zelda knew that, foolish and entirely illogical, but she still could not bring herself to say it, not when saying that they had to get him out of the wind, out of the drenched clothes, felt like it would make it all real. They had survived the initial outbreak of the disease. At the time, it had felt like pure chance that they had been spared, like death might still lurk right around the corner, and for as much as Zelda wanted to believe that they had not survived for weeks only for Link to die of a cold or hypothermia, something they would have been able to treat in the old world, as Link leant against Ganondorf, looking like he was moments away from falling asleep, that happening was a risk she could not ignore for a moment longer.

Rising to her feet, Zelda felt like giving up already, but as both Ganondorf and Link looked up at her, the despair in Ganondorf’s eyes becoming a bit less intense, slowly beginning to give way to the tiniest bit of hope, she knew that she was doing the right thing as she gestured towards Link. “We have to get you inside and out of those clothes. There… Deya Village—if we can just reach Deya Village, there has to be some kind of supermarket were we can find dry clothes for you and a camping stove or something like that to get you warm again.”

It was what had to be done, and still, it had taken her outright stating it for Ganondorf to react. Zelda wanted to say that she did not understand it, but as Ganondorf slowly moved to stand up, careful not to disturb Link, she knew exactly why he had hesitated to say it. The reason was already there, present in the blue that had come to replace the pink colour of Link’s lips and the deathly pale colour that had risen up in his cheeks, but there was something about the way he did not move or make an attempt at getting up, simply sitting there on the ground, looking like the only thing that kept him from falling over again was the hand Ganondorf had placed on his shoulder, that made Zelda wish that she had not said anything at all, that they could have continued to sit there and hope for the best.

She pushed it away, turning away from them to keep herself from looking at the way Link’s arm hung limply at his side as Ganondorf hooked one arm under his knees, supporting his back and head with the other as he picked him up like he did not weigh anything at all.

Pointing up towards the ridge, Zelda tried her best to pretend that she had not heard the little groan that was the only indication they got that Link had any idea about what was happening around him. “We just have to make it up there and then Deya Village will be right in front of us.”

Ganondorf did not tell her that they all knew that, that they had been walking up there mere minutes ago even if it felt like an eternity had passed since then, something Zelda was thankful for. Instead, he followed along after her, Link mumbling faintly as they moved towards Deya Village, Zelda lacking the focus to try to make out what he was saying, every last part of her brain feeling like it was dedicated to nothing more than looking up at the point where the ridge met the sky and see how it came closer to her as they reached the top of the hill.

Deya Village lay there in front of them, its placement down in the valley allowing Zelda to stare down at the rooftops of the smaller houses, the height of the buildings gradually increasing as she looked towards the centre of the town, the grey colour of the sky reflected in the concrete structures that lay there. Had she not known better, Zelda might have been able to fool herself into thinking that the town had been drained of all its colours, but she pushed the thought aside, instead twirling around to look back at where Ganondorf was struggling with the need to get Link inside as quickly as possible and the wish not to cause more harm by tripping over any of the roots that stuck out of the ground.

“Are you feeling okay?” Zelda asked as he reached her side, knowing full well that there was not much for her to do if the answer turned out to be no.

He must have known the same thing, but Zelda was still grateful for the fact that Ganondorf made sure to smile down at her, a gesture that would almost have seemed sincere had it not been for the fact that he was breathing heavily already. “Yeah, I will be fine. Just… we should probably be careful.”

They should. Even though Zelda ran down the hill while taking the time to look at where she placed her feet, she still felt the ground move below her, the mud making the ground slippery to a point where she almost found herself on the ground more than once, only barely able to keep her balance by striding forwards and using her arms to try to balance herself as she slowly made her way down towards the village in the valley. How Ganondorf was able to do the same thing while also having to carry Link was beyond her, but if it was fate that finally granted them that tiny bit of luck, Zelda would not question it, not when it might be what would save them in the end as they finally reached Deya Village.

Moving as quickly as they could, not quite running, but certainly walking faster than they had done only an hour ago, they passed by what felt like endless rows of houses and parked cars, Zelda keeping her eyes directly on the road in front of her. She did not trust herself not to look up, not to begin to look at the houses around her and begin to wonder which one of them might have been Paya’s, not when the need to do it, to do exactly what she knew would bring her pain, was almost too overwhelming to ignore.

It felt like it took years for them to make their way to the centre of the town, the faint murmurs coming from Link constantly forcing them to move faster, to ignore the glass that littered the street where a car had seemingly veered off the road, crashing into the glass façade of what appeared to be an office building, Zelda catching a glimpse of the figure that had slumped over the steering wheel of the car as they hurried past it. Recognising the way her body tensed in preparation for an attack that would never come, not physically at least, she lead them along roads and alleys, doing her best to try to keep track of just where they were in relation to the big, square building they had seen from on top of the hill.

When they finally reached the supermarket, they almost managed to miss it, Zelda only spotting the faded letters that hung over the entrance, proclaiming it to be Deya mall, a moment before they would have turned around the corner.

Exchanging a short glance, they walked into the mall without a word, the silence left intact, save for Link’s attempt at speaking, his voice still shaking so much that it was impossible to understand what he was saying.

Zelda would have expected for there to be someone within the mall, for them to have to move past a sea of dead bodies, but even as they stepped inside, the doors thankfully being manual rather than automatic, there was no thick smell of death hanging in the air, nor did she see any immediate signs of death and decay. There had to be an explanation for that, that much, Zelda did know. The disease had struck in a matter of hours; there had to be several millions of people who had been caught outside their homes, and with how Deya Village seemed to be a village in name only, Zelda knew better than to assume that they might be lucky enough to find themselves with the opportunity the gather up new supplies and figure out what to do to stop Link from freezing to death without also having to worry about the risk of being in close proximity to a corpse.

However, for as much as she wanted to turn around and leave the mall before they would inevitably turn around a corner to find exactly what she feared might be there, they had to make certain that Link was no longer in danger. Being scared of an empty mall was something they could begin to worry about when Link had got some colour other than the frosty blue tint back in his cheeks, so she continued deeper into the mall, spotting escalators that had paused as their cores had run out of energy and benches that were left empty. Ignoring the general dilapidation and how it was clear that no one had been there in weeks, the mall was pristine. There were no bags left on the ground, nothing to indicate that there had been people there when the outbreak had hit, and as Zelda walked along the wall, careful to keep her shoulder directly next to it as Ganondorf followed along, it unnerved her even more than the sight of corpses would have done. Not even the sight of mannequins, the window to her right revealing that they had finally found a clothes store, was enough to take the increasing sense of dread away, but at least it meant that they had found what they had been looking for, making Zelda raise her hand, signalling for Ganondorf to stop.

“There.” despite them being alone, Zelda found herself whispering to him as she pointed towards the store. “We can grab some of the clothes from in there.”

As Ganondorf looked over at a spot behind her, Zelda realised what she had failed to plan for. The door was closed, and a single tug at the door handle was enough to remove all hope of it perhaps having been left unlocked.

With her heart feeling like it was about to escape from her chest, the silence thundering in her ears, Zelda paused for a second, backing away as she prepared herself for what she knew had to be done. It would be all right; there was no one left to suffer as a result of anything they would have to do to survive. Around her, the eerie silence of the mall made it clear that no one would ever notice what she was about to do.

She could have told herself that for the rest of her life, and Zelda would still have felt her shoulders rise up towards her ears as she stepped back, but at least she was able to nod at the door, forcing a mask of fake confidence onto her face as she looked over at Ganondorf. “I will handle that.”

He looked at her, the crease between his brows revealing that he could see through the lie, but as Link stirred slightly, there was nothing he could have said to protest what she was about to do.

It took a while to find a store that had been left unlocked and had what she was looking for, but at last, Zelda pressed down on the door handle of an electronics store, the door thankfully swinging open to let her inside. She chose the box blindly, only stopping to make sure that it was heavy before tearing it open, grabbing the device inside before she headed back outside, Ganondorf looking at her without a word, leaving her no reason to ask if he had watched her through the windows for the entire time. There was no need to tell him to move aside, and so, Zelda positioned herself in front of the window in the spot where she was somewhat able to convince herself that she would have the best chances of avoiding being trapped beneath a shower of glass and aimed.

The console was not as easy to throw as she had hoped, and Zelda felt how it slipped out of her grasp before she was able to put her full weight behind it, but it was still enough to make it sail through the air, drawing a line as it connected with the glass window. With the sound of her pulse already roaring in her ears, Zelda watched as it continued through it, the crash only registering a moment later as cracks spread out across the window pane, little shards flying through the air to cover the floor just inside the store as the window broke.

The dust settled, allowing Zelda to move closer, pulling her sleeve down to cover her hands as she reached out to run her hand across the jagged edge of the window. The hole was not wide, and with how Zelda had no doubts that she would have cut herself had it not been for the protective layer of fabric, they had to be careful when moving Link inside, but at least they had a way of getting into the store.

She twirled around, a feeling almost akin to pride filling her voice as she threw out her hands, for a moment unable to ignore the feeling of welcoming someone into her home. “And we are in.”

That made Ganondorf move. Nodding at her, he clenched his jaw before walking over to her. Zelda stepped aside immediately to let him enter the store first. There was nothing for her to do but watch as Ganondorf turned around, walking sideways to keep Link from coming into contact with the shards of glass that still protruded from the edge of the hole, taking small, careful steps, glass crunching beneath his boots as he ducked to avoid hitting his head against the top of the window, but he made it inside without any injuries, Zelda following along after him.

Inside the clothing store, while nowhere near as bad as it could have been, there was an undeniable smell of old clothing in the air, Zelda seeing the twitch that ran along Ganondorf’s arm as she reached up to pull at the neck opening of her tunic, bringing it up to let the fabric cover her mouth and nose as they began to make their way down the aisle formed by dress rails, all of them displaying clothes in various shades of colours that were too bright for the world around them.

They had barely made it to the back of the store when Link began to move, pushing against Ganondorf’s arm with more force than Zelda had seen him be able to muster up since they had set out that morning. Ganondorf appeared to think the same, for, casting a glance down at Link, he slowly lowered him down onto the floor, keeping a hand on Link’s shoulder only for Link to push it away.

He did not look up at them, did not look at anything that was not an indeterminable point directly in front of him, but there was no doubt about whom he was talking to as Link broke through the silence. “I am not going to break in half, you know. I can take care of this on my own.”

There really was nothing they could say in response to that, nothing for Ganondorf or Zelda to do other than stand there, hoping that he was right, as Link pushed himself up from the floor, brushing off the tiny pieces of broken glass that still clung to his trousers, and turned around to disappear between racks of jeans and jackets. He had sounded like he was aware of what he was doing, not slurring the words. It was not a lot to pin her hope on, but she did not have much of that either, so Zelda had to believe that it was a sign that he would be able to take care of himself for however long he might need to find something to change into that was not still dripping water all over the floor.

It was not possible for her to say whether or not Ganondorf made a conscious decision to wait until Link was out of earshot to talk to her, but with how he kept on staring in the direction of where Link had disappeared behind metres of clothes, Zelda was tempted to conclude that it was the case as he shook his head.

“He will manage.” Ganondorf mumbled the words to himself before spinning around, for a moment looking almost surprised to see that she was still there. The shock passed in the blink of an eye to instead be replaced with what Zelda assumed was meant to be a comforting gleam in his eyes but looked more like he was having to fight to keep back the tears as he tilted his head to the side, the way he opened and closed his mouth twice before speaking making it evident that he was unsure of what to say. “He just needs a bit of space, but I know that he will be all right sooner or later.”

The idea of any of them ever being all right was laughable, but it was not a point Zelda wanted to argue about while standing inside a mall that did not feel nearly dilapidated enough. Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself, the chill of the outside world still not having left her as she once again tried to muster up what little courage she had been able to find before Link had lost his footing. “Listen, Ganondorf, I,” she began, hearing how her voice trembled. She could have tried to convince herself that it was caused by the cold air, but that would have been a lie even she would have seen through in a matter of seconds, so instead, Zelda squared her shoulders, forcing herself to get it over with before she was able to think it through, “I am a lesbian. That was what I was trying to tell you earlier.”

Zelda was not sure what she had expected, if she had thought that she would hear a crash of thunder, rain beginning to drum against the roof of the mall in response to her confession. She did not even know if she had ever really allowed herself to imagine telling anyone that particular secret, the idea of sharing the secret with anyone always beginning and ending with the moment where her father would inevitably find out. Now, at least, she was able to see what would happen.

The answer to her question was as close to nothing as it could have been without her having decided to remain silent in the end. Ganondorf stood there, looking down at her with the same outwardly blank expression as before. Really, Zelda could almost have convinced herself that she had ended up not saying anything at all had it not been for how she could see the thoughts going through his head as Ganondorf finally gave her an indication that he had heard her, crouching down slightly to minimise the difference in their heights, maintaining eye contact through it all.

“I…” Ganondorf did not outright look away from her, but she could still tell how he was no longer focusing on her but rather on what he was about to say, “I am glad that you felt like you could tell me.”

“So am I.” it was unnecessary to tell him the same thing, Zelda already feeling the relief spread through her body as Ganondorf sent her a smile, the expression for once fully reaching his eyes, but she said it nevertheless. The next sentence appeared in her mind in the blink of an eye, Zelda continuing before she got the chance to think about what she was saying. “Did you know?”

Rubbing the back of his head, Ganondorf could not hide how he looked towards where they could just barely hear a rustle of fabric as Link ventured deeper into the store, no doubt trying to look for help, but as he looked back down at her, it was clear that he was telling her the truth. “I mean, I suppose that I—Link and I both, really—knew about you and Paya, but…” he made a gesture that, while little more than a shrug, still contained everything Zelda could have agreed with, the fact that she had been careful not to let herself become too attached, not to open herself up to heartbreak by beginning to think about her feelings for Paya, “we could not really know for sure, not without asking you, at least, and with everything that was going on back then and everything that happened between then and now, it just never felt like there was a time to ask about it.”

“I guess not.”

He looked at her for another moment, Zelda almost hearing how he tried to figure out what to say. “You struggled to find a moment to tell us as well, didn’t you?”

The question should have been silly—of course she had struggled to tell them, of course there had been a reason she had not told them—but as Zelda bowed her head, she herself was not even sure about what she would say as she heard her own voice around her. “I guess so. It is just… I am aware of the fact that you still don’t know a lot about what my old life was like, but… I guess I never really felt like I could be sure that people would have… liked me if I had said anything back then.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Zelda could only look down at her hands and hope that she was doing a better job of keeping back the tears than what the sting in her eyes would suggest. She should have been happy, and somewhere deep down, Zelda supposed that she was relieved and overjoyed that, if she died, at least she would not have taken that secret with her to the grave, but her vision still blurred, becoming a mess of dusty colours amidst the bright and cheerful raincoats and shirts that filled the store.

Ganondorf breathed out, the sound slow and calming, before he drowned out the silence again. “Do you want a hug?”

Until then, Zelda had been certain that she would want for nothing more than to be left alone for a moment, for the others to give her those handful of minutes to compose herself again, to wipe away the tears, take a deep breath, and try to forget that anything had happened at all, but right in that moment, she found herself looking at Ganondorf, the thought that she would not be able to continue to move forwards, to pick herself up when Link would return and guide them the rest of the way to the Temple of Time, if she did not receive a hug in that very moment being all she could focus, so, of course, she said yes, Ganondorf pulling her into an embrace the moment she finished the word.

The mall was eerie and she could feel where a piece of glass had ripped a tiny hole in her tunic. Link still looked at her with a haunted expression in his eyes, just like he was still gone, but for a moment, Zelda could almost believe that everything would turn out to be all right in the end, that it was all a matter of them having to stick together, to reach the Temple of Time, and that everything would then make sense to her there, her powers manifesting when she would need them the most.

She could have stayed there for the rest of the day, simply trying to make herself understand that she had finally shared her secret with someone and that it had not been a disaster, but in the end, it was the sound of her own stomach rumbling that brought an end to the hug, Ganondorf taking a step back to beam down at her.

“Looks like you are hungry again,” he said, and although Zelda should have wanted to do nothing more than to curl up and hide as he did not leave her with any way of convincing herself that he and Link had not noticed how she had had trouble eating, she was able to stand there as Ganondorf motioned towards a spot just outside the store, “wait here. I think I saw a camping store a couple of minutes ago. They’re bound to have some kind of long-life food—I’ll go get it!”

A minute ago, Zelda was sure that she would have told herself that he was trying to get away from her, that he turned around and climbed through the gaping hole in the window because he was not sure about what to do and did not want to risk upsetting her further, but now, she just nodded, able to return his smile with one of her own as he hurried out of the store. She saw him duck to climb back out through the hole, the glass once again crunching beneath his feet as he moved away, some of it clearly having got stuck beneath his shoes, and a moment later, Ganondorf had turned around the corner, the sound of his footsteps fading as he began to move back towards the camping store.

Once again, her stomach rumbled, Zelda looking down at it in the silence of the store. She must have been hungry before that point, but even as she tried to recall a moment of wishing for more food, she could not remember it having ever happened.

“It is going to be fine.” Link could only be a few metres away, and perhaps she should have felt childish, embarrassed even, for talking to herself, patting her stomach as she waited for Ganondorf’s return, but she didn’t. “It will be fine now.”

Zelda believed it. For a moment, she was simply able to believe that they might have a chance, able to forget about how they had come close to dying so many times by now that it was only a matter of time before their luck would run out. Ganondorf would return with food in a moment, just as Link would come back with a dry set of clothes any second now.

Something fell to the floor next to her. It could not have been more than a couple of metres away, but as Zelda turned to smile at Link, there was no one there. Frowning, Zelda tilted her head to the side. “Link? Are you ready to leave this place?”

There was no answer, and suddenly, it was too quiet, too clean, and all too obvious that no one had been there for ages. She had to get out now.

If there was someone out there who was waiting to attack her, they would have had every opportunity to do so by now, but Zelda still found herself trying to run as silently as she could, the plan brought to a sudden end as she reached the area of the floor that was covered in little splinters of glass, each of them breaking beneath her feet as she felt her breath hitch in her throat, her heartbeat speeding up as the adrenaline made her acutely aware of the glaring signs of danger she should have seen by now, the empty mall, the way it had almost seemed to welcome them, the fact that Link, possibly hypothermic and still insisting that he was fine and could take care of himself, had been away for so long when he had only meant to find a dry change of clothes. She should have realised it back before they had ever set foot in the mall, back when they would have had a weapon to defend themselves with. Now, she could feel how her feet almost slid out from underneath her, Zelda barely managing to keep herself upright as she broke into one last sprint towards the hole in the window.

She would never have made it, not when she was not sure exactly where Ganondorf had gone, but there was still a fraction of a second where she was able to trick herself into believing it. It was brought to an end by a flash of orange, a blinding pain that bloomed in the back of her head, and then the feeling of falling as her vision did not return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They really just don't get a break :)


	19. Chapter 19

Every muscle in her body ached. That was the first sense that returned to her, the feeling of how every last part of her protested against the idea of moving even a centimetre, Zelda having to breathe in and out several times before she found the strength to open her eyes, only to find herself staring up at where a fluorescent light was swinging from the ceiling. It was unlit, but even if she had had any light to help her orientate herself, Zelda doubted that she would have been able to hold on to even a single thought with how pain shot up from the back of her head, feeling almost like it radiated through her mind as she looked around her.

There was a hole in her memories, any idea about what might have preceded that very moment stopping just as she had begun to head out to find Ganondorf and then only resuming after what Zelda decided had to be several hours, if the hunger pangs were any indication, but she did not need to recall what had passed between those two points in time to guess what must have happened. With the flash of orange still appearing in front of her as she closed her eyes, Zelda recalling the seconds of knowing that someone was there, someone who could move silently and unseen, there was only one answer as to who could have taken her: the Yiga Clan.

Propping herself up onto her elbows, having to pause for a moment before continuing to push herself up into a sitting position, Zelda could feel the onset of panic, the way her breathing became shallow, faster, her thoughts circling back to the Yiga Clan, what had happened, what she was doing there, where they were keeping her. The air felt like water as she forced herself to take a deep breath, coming down into her lungs to threaten to drown her as she held her breath, counting to eight before exhaling, but she pushed through it. If there was one thing she could say for certain about the room she was in, it was that she was alone. If she wanted to stand a chance against the Yiga Clan, should they come back to where they had left her, she had to be calm and able to think of a plan, so she continued the steady rhythm, almost hearing Ganondorf’s instructions as she breathed in, held, out, held, and then, finally, in again, already feeling how her mind cleared enough to allow her to push the fact that she was still in grave danger towards the back of her mind to instead focus on her immediate surroundings and situation.

The room she was kept in was small. Though she could not see the walls around her in the darkness, nor find the strength to stand up to walk to the wall to track the outline of the cell, Zelda knew from the smell of stuffy air and the heavy feeling of breathing it in that the room was small, the flooring made of what she decided had to be some kind of plastic-like material, possibly linoleum, as she ran her hand over it. Though she did not want to get her hopes up too early, Zelda doubted that the room would have had that kind of flooring if it had been meant specifically to imprison someone. Instead, it felt almost like the floor that had been in every room back at her old school. The thought should not have been comforting, not with how she had spent almost every break either huddled up against the sides of one of the couches in the corner of the library or in one of the laboratories, saved by her teacher’s love for talking about their subjects with any student who showed even the slightest bit of interest, and yet, Zelda felt her heartrate slow down a bit. The change wasn’t great, barely more than what was absolutely necessary to keep her from hyperventilating, but it was still what allowed her to continue on, Zelda turning her attention towards what had initially woken her.

It was cold in the room, Zelda holding her breath as she tried to determine if she could detect the sound of wind howling, but all she heard was the sound of her own heartbeat, the silence filling the cell the moment she stopped moving, no longer broken by the rustling of clothes or the groans she could not keep back as she tried to move.

“Okay.” her voice was hoarse, Zelda desperately trying not to think about what would happen if she did not figure out how to escape, how long she could expect to last without water. “Just keep talking and it won’t be so silent. Good, so, what do we know about this room? Where could there be a weakness to this cell that would allow me to escape?”

In the darkness, the only thing Zelda could really make out was the outline of a door to her right, a tiny bit of light entering the room from beneath it where it appeared to not connect fully with the floor below. At the sides of it, however, as well as along the top, she could not spot a trace of the same sign of a possible escape route.

“Come on,” Zelda whispered to herself before she was forced to fall silent, gritting her teeth as she pulled herself up from the floor by willpower alone, stumbling over to the door before falling down in front of the line of light, her legs giving out beneath her. Still, those few metres were all she had needed to move, Zelda reaching out to run her fingers along the edge around the door.

There was a slight gab between the door and the flooring, one possibly created by the building having expanded in the warmth of the last months of summer only for the cold beginning of autumn to make it contract again, the process then repeated over the years, with the last instance of it happening having been the one where there was no one around to take care of it. That, or perhaps it had always been that way. It did not really matter to Zelda, not as she moved her hands away from the edge of the door, finding herself brushing against brick a few moments later as she reached the other side. A cursory check was enough to let her know that she would not have found a door handle anywhere on the door, but that was also what Zelda had expected.

Sitting back, she nodded to herself, already knowing that the attempt at convincing herself that everything would be fine, that she had any idea about what she was doing, was failing miserably, but trying nonetheless. “Good, a sliding door, most likely automatic and sliding into a groove running along the ceiling, continuing into the wall on the other side for stability. That’s good. So if there is a door and this is not meant as a place to keep people captured, that means that there has to be a way to unlock it from the inside. I just have to find it.”

Continuing to mumble to herself, not as much because she had anything left to say as to keep the silence from creeping back in to overwhelm her once more, Zelda began to work her way around the room, brushing against the walls with the tips of her fingers, careful not to accidentally touch anything that would alert the Yiga Clan to her being awake and aware. Granted, she could not entirely rule out the risk of there being a camera in the room, something for them to watch her, but even if that was the case, she would not freely give them another sign that she was awake by accidentally triggering any kind of mechanism they might have put in place for her to activate upon waking up.

She worked slowly, methodically making her way over first the wall broken up by the sliding door before beginning to search through the rest of the room, moving anti-clockwise to make sure that she would not miss any sign of an escape. As she worked, the solid wall of darkness that had been in front of her eyes slowly lifted even as she moved away from the hair-thin line of light than ran along the floor, allowing her to make out the faintest outline of a square on the wall. Pushing herself up onto her knees, Zelda felt how her legs shook beneath her as she followed the outline of the square, keeping one hand at the left-hand side of it before moving the right in over if, feeling the smooth surface below her fingers give way to smaller squares, separated from each other by the tiniest line of metal running along them to form a grid. A keypad.

It was with her heart beating so loudly that anyone within a radius of a hundred kilometres should have been able to hear her that Zelda moved back, sizing up what she had found. There was a way out, or at least there would be if she could figure out the code. Furrowing her brows, Zelda began counting, following the lines between the keys to make sure that she did not miss a single one as she counted ten individual keys, laid out in a three times three pattern with the last one having been added to the middle row under the rest of them. Most likely, it was a matter of the ten numbers between zero and nine, creating ten possibilities for every digit in the access code, which meant that even if the code would turn out to consist of only a single digit, her chance of getting it correct on the first try was only one in ten, a too small percentage for her to risk it with no way of knowing what would happen if she was incorrect, if it would trigger an alarm or shut down the connection between the keypad and the door entirely, if the two were even connected at all.

The thought that, with how much time had passed since the last time someone who had any experience with the technology would have got the chance to make sure that it was still fully functional, she could not be able to know whether or not it would work at all dawned on her, threatening to bring along the overwhelming despair of being lost for yet another time, so she acted without thinking, reaching to the right, digging the tips of her nails into where there was a tiny groove between the metal of the panel and the rest of the wall, searching for the little hatch. She found it, Zelda ignoring how the pain that accompanied her attempt at prying open the outside of the panel made it clear that she had been meant to use a tool rather than her bare hands as she pulled at it, finding new strength in the way it began to give way under her attempts at forcing it open, until the front finally swung open, Zelda barely managing to catch the piece of metal as it fell downwards, the little wires that connected the back of it to the inner workings of the lock keeping it from falling to the floor, instead sending it on a trajectory that would have had it collide with the wall if she had not stopped it. Slowly letting go of the front, Zelda squinted, and through the darkness, she could see the faint glow of a core that was close to being completely depleted through the ingenious maze of wires that made up the inside of the keypad.

It was not until she found herself reaching forwards without thinking that Zelda saw how her hands shook so wildly that she could not even move past the outer layer of wires. Perhaps that was for the best. Even as she had to stop, several centimetres away from the core, pulling her hand back out before she would have been able to ruin anything, Zelda could feel the warmth of the energy that twirled around the core. Though it might be close to dying, it still held enough energy to shock her. Alone in the cell, Zelda was not willing to risk it, not when she had no way of knowing whether or not she would be able to survive it or if the Yiga Clan would care enough to try to help her.

A moment later she realised the absurdity in the mere idea of them trying to help her in the event that she were to injure herself. After all, she only had to close her eyes to remember how they had not hesitated to attack her and her friends back at the museum, how their weapons had looked as they had drawn them with the intent of attacking them. But despite that, there was a part of her that did not want to believe it, that did not wish to believe that there might really be people out there who would try to finish what the cycle had begun and kill the last of those who were still left behind.

So rather than focusing on the immediate risk of an electric shock disturbing her heartrate, Zelda studied the wires and how they criss-crossed, forming a pattern that could have appeared chaotic had it not been for how they had all been arranged neatly next to one another, the different colours all bathed in the same faint, blue light that made it almost impossible for Zelda to determine their exact colours, forcing her to focus on the fact that they were clearly meant to be different from one another. There was a chance that she could cut one of them, try to rip one of them out from their socket, and then hope that the door had been built with a dead man’s switch that would bring it to open as it lost connection to the input panel next to it, but that was an argument that could just as easily be turned against the idea of beginning to fiddle with a lock that far outweighed a regular door lock in its complexity.

Zelda could not tell how long she sat there for, trying to decide whether the advantages of doing something were able to outweigh the possible drawbacks that could follow her next action, only that she was brought back to a world where time had any meaning by the loud rumble from her stomach.

Barely able to keep herself from letting the front panel hang from the wires, instead pushing it back against the wall until she heard the click of metal sliding into the right spots to keep it secure, Zelda folded her arms in front of her stomach and leant in over it, lying down on the ground as she hoped for the pain to go away.

It did not. Though it did dim for a moment, it was only to return again, this time even more vicious than the first time she had noted the hunger pangs, reminding her of the fact that there might come a time where she would have to make a choice, where she would have to force her way out of the room.

A moment passed where Zelda was not able to rein in her thoughts, the idea of being rescued rising up from the depths of her mind she had banished it to, staying there for a fraction of a second, bright and hopeful, before she was able to push it away again. Link had been captured as well. There was no other way for Zelda to explain why he had disappeared for so long, why he had not reacted at all when she had called out for him, and although she wanted to believe that Ganondorf’s quest to find food for them would have saved him, it would be naïve to assume that any of them were safe when faced with the Yiga Clan without having any tangible evidence for that being the case.

If she wanted to be saved, it was something she would have to take care of herself.

Her stomach rumbled as Zelda closed her eyes, but rather than acknowledging it, she tried to envision how she would reach out, moving to reach a bit further, towards where she could almost feel the warmth of the inheritance that should perhaps have felt like it was nothing but a hollow apology for everything else that being a descendant of the royal family had meant for her against her skin. Now was the moment where she would truly need it, the moment where it all depended on her ability to reach out and pull it towards her. There was no one to talk to, no one to ask for advice, Impa either dead or on the run. There was no one in the cell but her; she was the one who had to think of a way to escape if she wanted even the tiniest chance of saving her friends, Zelda using that knowledge to keep herself from thinking about anything else. The floor was cold, giving off the impression that she might as well have lain on a solid block of ice, but it was unimportant as she felt everything fall away to make space for one last, desperate push against the barrier that separated her from her powers.

It withstood her attempt, Zelda continuing to try over and over again, the blockade feeling as solid as ever before. Already as she readied herself for the last attempt, Zelda knew that it was not going to work, that with how many times she had already tried the exact same thing, it would not make a difference, but that certainty did not take away any of the hopelessness that spread through her body as she put every last bit of strength she had into the attempt, only to see that it had had no effect. The barrier was still there, Zelda not sensing even the tiniest crack that would have allowed her to catch a glimpse of her powers, to find the sliver of them she would have needed to escape.

In her situation, it was imperative not to lose hope, to keep on trying. Zelda knew that, but it did not stop her from falling to the side, lacking the energy to bring herself to care about the pain that shot through her head and shoulder as she made impact with the floor, unable to do anything other than pull her knees up towards her chin and wrap her arms around herself to imitate the hug she wished she could have got as she began to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that short chapter, Zelda is left to try to figure out how to handle everything that has happened.


	20. Chapter 20

Time passed. Zelda could only tell that it must be a matter of more time than the period she had initially been unconscious for, her eyes having slowly grown used to the lack of light to a point where she could just barely make out the outlines of both the keypad and her own hand when she would hold it up in front of her face, by how the first thing she saw as she opened her eyes after what felt like an eternity of being caught somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, not quite being asleep, but also nowhere near awake, was a cup.

With how it had been placed between her and the door, the thin stripe of light that was able to find its way into the cell haloed it, instantly pulling both her eyes and her arms towards it as she made herself wait, calm down, and move slowly so that she would not risk knocking it over. Her throat ached, Zelda sensing how the dehydration had made her movements sluggish, her mind unable to finish any thought, instead leaving them to hang in the air as she pushed herself up to sit against the wall before she reached out to grab the cup.

Clutching it with both hands, Zelda looked down at its contents. It looked transparent, though Zelda knew that the darkness would have made it difficult for her to spot such an obvious sign of poisoning as that not being the case would have been. Bringing it up to her nose, Zelda breathed in deeply. Nothing as well.

Looking down at the surface of the liquid, Zelda knew that her concluding that it had to be water was a decision influenced by the part of her body that screamed for water, knew that her attempt at convincing herself that they would not have bothered to keep her alive until now only to poison her was not the solid argument she wanted it to be, but she did not care. She could not imagine anything that could be worse than a slow death from dehydration, and so, Zelda brought the cup up to her lips, careful not to spill a drop, and leant back.

The cup had been filled, not quite to the brim, but close to it, and it still felt like she had only drunk a few mouthfuls before she reached the bottom of the cup. Wiping her mouth with her sleeve, Zelda could feel how the liquid ran down her throat, reaching her stomach where it settled in the empty space. It had been warm, Zelda vaguely aware of how she would have found it uncomfortable back before she had woken up in the cell, but here, it felt like someone had given her everything she could have wished for, Zelda finally finding the strength to stand up, hearing how the water sloshed around in her stomach with every movement.

Reaching up to press a finger against her temple, Zelda felt how the headache that had grown to overshadow every thought during the last few instances of her waking up only to fall asleep again moments later was slowly disappearing, noting the effects the drink had had on her while trying her best to distract herself from what was happening. It was simple to look at her body and try to keep track of what was happening, but to be able to think things through, she knew that she had to distance herself from what was happening, that she could only remain calm if she imagined that she was giving advice to someone else.

Twirling around on the spot, Zelda could almost see how it would play out, a faceless person coming up to her to describe their situation. What would she say to them?

As she looked towards the spot where she knew the core was separated from her by only a few wires, Zelda made her decision. If her choice was between staying in the cell and hoping that her captors would also give her enough food to survive and risking her life to pursue the little chance that tinkering with the wires would open up the door, Zelda knew what the only choice she could possibly make was.

She must not have been able to fully secure the panel in her haste to try to quell her hunger, for Zelda barely had to push against it this time before it fell open, allowing her access to the wires and core on the other side.

The Yiga Clan had made a mistake by giving her the drink, for as Zelda looked from her hands towards the core, trying to decide what her plan of action would be, they no longer shook as violently as they had done before. They had underestimated her, and she would make sure that that would be their downfall in the end.

Zelda moved without thinking, already reaching up towards her necklace, not realising that she was no longer in a situation that called for her to lead power from one core to another, but rather reversing the flow, as she found nothing but air. Looking down, Zelda continued to search for the necklace, feeling how her breathing sped up a little as the realisation that they must have considered the danger that failing take the obvious piece of metal away from her could become washed in over her.

“Okay,” Zelda whispered to herself, instead closing her fist around the large beads that made up the necklace Riju had given to Ganondorf and he had then given to her, “it is fine, you didn’t need that anyway.”

She was surprised by how it was not the lie she had thought it would be. Granted, she had known already that the metal would not do much to help her with the task ahead, but as she glanced down, barely able to make out the outline of the beads, she did not mourn the loss of her old necklace. There would not have been any room for it either, not with the relief that accompanied the fact that they had at least not taken her other necklace as well. For all the old necklace had been a family heirloom and the present her father had given to her on her seventeenth birthday, it had only weighed her down, Zelda shaking her head to make herself focus on what she had to do, the short hair allowing her to lean in towards the core without having to brush it back behind her ears to begin working..

The air around the core was warm, effectively removing any ideas she might have had about being able to reach in and disable it by coming into direct contact with it, but as she watched how the tendrils of energy moved through the air, twirling around themselves and each other, Zelda noting how they all moved in the same direction, it was clear that there was no need for her to wish to do that either. Instead, Zelda tugged at the wire closest to her, deeming it to be the one that had the least risk of disturbing the rest of the pattern. It budged a little, Zelda working slowly, careful to avoid any sudden movements as she pulled it out of the socket before holding her breath, waiting for red lights to turn on, for a siren to begin to blare, for the door to close for good, the little stripe of light disappearing entirely, anything that would show that she had been wrong to think that her plan could work.

The seconds passed, long and agonising, and nothing happened.

Waiting for another moment to try to give herself a false sense of security, Zelda moved on to the next step of her plan. It was impossible to reach in to fully connect the wire in her hand to the core, not unless she wished to risk burning and electrocuting herself, so she settled on throwing one end of it as close to the blue tendrils that circled around the core as she dared, hesitating for a moment as she tried to form an idea of just how the layout worked, which wires would connect with what, before making her decision and pulling out another wire to replace it with the one in her hand, leaving the second one to dangle uselessly.

Unlike the result of the first step, the effect was immediate, Zelda hearing the whir of gears moving as the door to her right slid open, allowing light to fill the room, blinding her as all Zelda could do was to press the heel of her hands against her eyes. It hurt, Zelda still seeing the blindingly white light as she closed her eyes and tried to turn her head away from the door, but even then, she could not keep herself from laughing, the sound bubbling up from deep within her stomach, escaping her before she was able to worry about the risk of it catching the attention of the Yiga Clan. They had forgot to make sure that they had not left behind the thing she was best at and had as such given her the biggest advantage they could possibly have placed inside the little cell.

Her eyes still hurt as Zelda decided that she had spent enough time trying to grow used to the brightness of the outside world, running out of the cell, only to immediately collide with the wall across from her, unable to make out anything that was not directly in front of her face. Still, it would not stop her, so she made a quick decision and went left, following what was little more than the instinctive thought that with how the keypad had been located on the left-hand side of the door, the exit might be as well. She kept a hand on the wall as she moved, aware of the fact that, though it might turn out that her unfounded decision would get her into even bigger problems, if she were to find the exit, she would most likely not be able to see it.

The seconds passed like that, Zelda slowly beginning to see more and more of what was around her, the effects of the unknown amount of time she had spent in darkness slowly giving way to allow her vision to return.

The building was old. That was the first thing Zelda noticed, how it was not only a matter of the lamp in her cell having been old and broken, that everything in the building shared the same dilapidated air that had clung to her cell, Zelda passing a glass partition that separated her from what appeared to be an office, several of the chairs having seemingly been pushed over, a couple of them missing their legs. It was enough to make her pause for a moment, breathing hard as she turned to glance back down the corridor she had just left. The building had every sign of having been deserted, but as she stood there, Zelda knew better than to immediately assume that that was really the case. After all, that assumption had been what had led to her being there in the first place. Besides, someone had to have stopped by relatively recently for the drink that had been left in her cell to have stayed tepid in the cold air in the room. As Zelda continued, it was with significantly softer steps and more time between them, Zelda staying close to the walls, moving sideways so that she would not leave herself vulnerable to any unseen attacks.

It took a while, but the sights that met her every time she turned around another corner, the offices that had been left behind, broken and abandoned, and the fact that she continued into a big hall, rusted pieces of metal hanging from the ceiling and what looked like a conveyor belt taking up most of the space in the room, slowly began to connect, forming the idea of the building possibly having been a factory. However, as Zelda stopped, running her hand along the bannister of the stairs leading up towards a door on the other side of the room, her hand coming away cowered in a thick layer of dust, it was obvious that the factory had been abandoned a long time before the disease, possibly years before, and Zelda had no doubt about who had been the ones to claim ownership of the building. It was the only explanation, for the Yiga Clan to have claimed it as their own and repurposed it onto what it was now.

Casting a glance back at the factory hall, Zelda was only happy to leave it behind. It was too open, with far too many places for a person to hide, waiting to leap out from their hiding place when she would expect it the least.

Her hands shook slightly as she pressed down on the door handle, the cold metal reminding her of the light had glinted as it hit sharpened metal the last time she had faced the Yiga Clan. Back then, she had at least had a weapon to defend herself with. Now, she was left without any anything she could possibly have used to protect herself from harm, something Zelda could feel in every bone in her body as she slowly closed the door behind her, careful not to let it fall shut and risk it alerting anyone to the fact that she had escaped.

Despite how Zelda knew that she wasted precious seconds on making absolutely sure that she did not make any sounds, she must not have been careful enough after all, for she had barely taken five steps down the corridor before she heard the sound of footfalls echo from where the corridor made a sudden turn only a few metres away from her. Whoever the other person was, they were trying to be quiet as well, but it still felt like thunderclaps every time they moved, Zelda freezing, unable to make the decision to either move forwards and hope that she would be able to win the fight by having the element of surprise on her side or run back into the factory hall where she might be able to hide. Instead she stood there, knowing full well that she was making it laughably easy for the Yiga Clan to win the fight that was bound to ensue, that it was a matter of seconds before she would be either unconscious or dead, and still, Zelda could not move.

The footsteps grew louder and louder, Zelda’s heart rising to rest somewhere in her throat as she drew back, pressing herself up against the white wall like it would help her hide, keeping her eyes wide open, refusing to let herself face the attacker without at least being able to see them. Her breathing was shallow, almost non-existent, Zelda hoping that it would be enough to make them miss her and knowing that it would not be the case as the person turned around the corner and froze.

They both stood there, neither of them moving, neither of them saying a single word or doing anything at all to show that they recognised the other, but there was no need for any of that to happen. From the moment Zelda saw how the fiery red hair brought an end to the monotonous white corridors and the scattered blue glow of exposed cores that were nearing the end of their lifetimes, it was clear that she was safe. Really, if anything, Ganondorf looked more scared than she felt as he stood there, looking over at her without a word, the sword in his hand falling to the ground as he finally opened his mouth.

“Zelda?”

She flew forwards, almost knocking them both off balance as she brought her arms around him, Ganondorf taking a step back to keep both of them from falling before lifting her up from the ground as he returned the embrace. He still had the rucksack slung over his shoulder. It was something so small, and, really, Zelda should have found herself much more intrigued by the fact that he had the Master Sword hanging at his side, but that was nevertheless what she focused on as the hug came to an end, Ganondorf lowering her back down onto her feet. The calming weight of his left hand on her shoulder remained even as he cast a glance to the side, towards the corridor he had just emerged from moments earlier.

“How—when—” the thoughts refused to connect, Zelda having to clear her throat. “How did you find me? Where is Link?”

“I heard a crash and a scream and when I returned to the clothing store, you were gone. After that, it was pretty obvious that both you and Link had been taken by someone. Come,” Ganondorf motioned for her to follow him, already running back in the direction he had just come from as he continued, “it took a while for me to figure out where you were, and, to be honest, I still don’t really know what made me think to search for you in this building other than the fact that it just felt right, but no matter what, I decided to follow that instinct, and, well, it took me to the Master Sword and then to you two. Link is still trapped over here, though, and I could not figure out how to get him out of the cell, so—”

“Was there a keypad outside the cell?”

He sent her a surprised look, the two of them running in silence save for the sound of their boots hitting the ground and the steady rhythm of their breathing for another couple of seconds until he nodded. “Yeah, there is. I take it that that was how you got you—guessing the code?”

She could still feel the cold metal of the panel and the soft plastic covering the wires in her hands as she forced herself not to slow them down despite how her legs and chest ached. “Something like that.”

Despite the drink, Zelda already aware of the fact that with the effect it had had on her, it could hardly have been mere water, her body was still not prepared at all for the degree of physical exertion it took to keep up with Ganondorf as they sprinted down hallways and around corners, but she pushed through the pain and exhaustion. Around them, the building was too quiet, too empty. It was a blessing, something they should be grateful for and hope their luck could make last for a little longer. After all, even if she could see Ganondorf reach towards the Master Sword every time they would round a corner, she would still be left unarmed in the event of an attack. However, even though she knew that they should consider themselves lucky that they continued to open up doors to reveal empty corridors on the other side, there was something about the heavy silence that felt unnerving in a way an outright attack never would have done.

It took her a while before she was able to name just what the reason for it was, why her heart was beating so hard in her chest that it felt like it was trying to hammer its way out from behind her sternum, but as Ganondorf paused for a second before pushing open yet another door, it was clear in her mind. The empty factory, though having been touched by time in a way the mall had not been, had the same deserted air to it, the feeling that, any moment now, she would hear the same sounds of crashes that had preceded the attack back then.

The thought alone was enough to make the hairs on her arms rise, a fear that no amounts of telling herself that Ganondorf at least had to know where the exit was was able to quell seizing her mind. Something was wrong, and it did not take much thinking to figure out just what it might be. They were heading towards a trap, and the question of what the bait to lead them into it might be had only one answer. They had always travelled together, had appeared in Clock Town together, fought together. With how the Yiga Clan always seemed to know the exact moment they were the least prepared for an attack, Zelda had no doubts that they would also have caught on to how Ganondorf had been willing to risk his life to protect Link, that neither of them had tried to leave her behind back in Kakariko Village. By heading back towards Link, they would make sure to get all of their victims together in the same area, making it even easier for the Yiga Clan to capture them all by removing their chances of figuring out that something was wrong and acting accordingly, and though Zelda was not sure what the Yiga Clan had gained by not simply capturing Ganondorf the moment he had set foot in the factory, the fact that they were now heading towards Link’s cell, Ganondorf having had to find her first, could not be a coincidence.

But there was nothing else for them to do. Even if they might be able to escape by leaving Link behind and hope that the Yiga Clan had failed to take the risk of them leaving by themselves into account, not even in her thoughts was that an option Zelda allowed herself to pursue. They were going to escape together or not at all.

The factory was a labyrinth of hallways and meeting rooms, but Ganondorf still moved along in front of her, not pausing for even a moment as he turned around corners and opened doors. That was what made Zelda sure that they had reached their destination rather than a point where he had to think to recall the route he had taken as Ganondorf stopped in front of what could almost have been yet another white wall had it not been for the keypad that brought an end to the endless surfaces of monotonous white, the slight indent in the wall that revealed the placement of the sliding door so discreet that Zelda would surely have missed it if she had not been looking for it.

“There.” Ganondorf whispered the word, pointing towards the square like she had not already seen it. “He is in there.”

Running a hand across the keypad, Zelda made a quick decision and turned back around to face Ganondorf. “Can he hear me?” a hesitant nod and Zelda pirouetted back around, placing her hands on the door as she leant in towards it. “Link! We are going to get you out, but if you are anywhere near the door right now, I need you to step away from it! Okay?”

The only answer she received was a muffled sound of someone moving around and words she could not quite make out through the door. There was no way of telling whether he had understood what she had said or if her attempt at communicating with him had made him move closer to the door, but she had to hope for the best as she turned her attention to the keypad.

It looked just like the one that had been in her room, and as Zelda pried open the outer layer of keys and display, hearing Ganondorf stifle a little gasp as she caught it before it would have swung down to hit the wall, she saw that the inner mechanics matched the one in her room as well, the soft blue glow of the core adding to the already cold and dim lighting of the corridor. Trying her best not to think about what might happen if the core were to die completely as she worked, Zelda moved quickly, the wires coming loose much quicker now that she no longer stopped every other second to second-guess the plan, and a moment later, the door slid aside, revealing the inside of the cell.

Zelda had been standing closest to it, but Ganondorf was still the first of them to run inside, managing to crouch down next to Link, pulling one of his arms around his shoulders as he helped him up. Link looked pale, but at least he was conscious as he reached up to shield his eyes from the light of the corridor.

“Gan?” he mumbled the word, still not looking directly up at them. “Zelda?”

There was something about his voice, about the way he said their names like he could not quite bring himself to believe that it was real, sounding far more willing to think that it was all a dream, that resonated inside her, the air leaving her lungs as she looked down at how he had yet to move, neither leaning against Ganondorf nor reaching out to accept the proffered hand. Stepping into the cell, all Zelda could do was to try her best not to cry as she too sat down next to him, hoping that the feeling of her reaching out to take his hand would convince him that their presence was not merely a comforting idea made up by his own mind to help him cope.

A loud laugh was the only warning they received before the sound of metal cutting through air brought them all back to reality, back to the world where they were still inside the Yiga Clan’s hideout.

Rising to her feet, Zelda could see how their mistake of having gone to crouch down next to Link rather than getting him out of the cell the moment they had opened the door was going to lead to their downfall, the orange and grey-clad figure outside the cell soon joined by two others. They were all wearing mask that hid their faces from sight, but Zelda would still have been willing to bet everything she had left that they would have seen wide smiles behind them. And why should the Yiga Clan not have smiled? After all, they had them exactly where it was the most beneficial to them, already inside a cell, having spent ages figuring out how to escape and how to find the others, only to then walk directly into a trap.

The blue light glinted in the curved blade as the Yiga soldier closest to them raised their weapon, Zelda barely having time to think that perhaps they had never meant to imprison them, that maybe the only reason they had been kept alive for so long was to serve as bait for Ganondorf to come to them, sparing them the effort of having to go out to find him, the fear of dying still feeling like a distant concept as she heard someone yell at her side, Link slumping towards her as Ganondorf disappeared from his side, rushing forwards in a blur of red and silver, the sword flashing as he swung it in front of him. Inexplicably, rather than parrying and continuing to rain down attacks the way it had happened back at Hyrule National Museum, for a moment, the Yiga Clan members seemed almost frightened, drawing back as Ganondorf made another lunge at them, wielding the sword with both hands.

He moved in a way Zelda had never seen him do before, looking almost like he would not have been slowed down at all by any amounts of barriers the Yiga Clan could have placed in front of him, twirling and turning, never allowing any attacks to hit him even as Zelda saw how several of them should have been able to move past his defences, how they should not have given him enough time to react. But he reacted, his movements blurring together as the Yiga soldiers surrounded him, Ganondorf continuing to lunge at them, never giving them enough time to make an attempt at overpowering them the way they had done back at the museum. In fact, as the seconds passed, each of them feeling like years, Ganondorf slowly began to force the Yiga Clan to move back.

A hiss, and something red flew through the air, a few drops of it landing on Zelda’s hand, forcing her out of the passive state to instead look down at it, her brain connecting the way the Yiga soldier closest to the keypad fell over, clutching at their leg with the pained hiss and the warmth of the red liquid on her skin. Blood. A glimpse of the fight outside the door to the cell, and Zelda could see that it would not be the first instance of blood being spilled in the room, Ganondorf continuing to move forwards, forcing the Yiga to retreat, moving further and further away from the door.

Turning towards Link, Zelda did the only thing she could think of and grabbed onto his arm, rising to her feet as she forced him to follow her out into the corridor. He was as close to being deadweight as he could be without being outright unconscious, Zelda having to wrap both arms around his chest to keep him from slipping out of her grasp as she began to move through the corridor, away from the sound of metal clashing against metal and the unfamiliar scream she could only hope was not Ganondorf’s, Link’s feet dragging over the floor as she halfway ran halfway crawled away from the fight.

The sounds of the battle did not grow quieter as they turned around the corner, Zelda having to force herself to continue to run rather than stop and stare as she found herself in what appeared to be some kind of entrance hall, the entire wall on her right-hand side consisting of glass, revealing how the sun was up high in the sky outside, pouring what little energy she had left into making one last attempt at bringing the two of them over to the door, Link’s head lolling to the side with every step she took. Behind them, Zelda heard how new sounds added to the cacophony of violence, the clash of swords becoming louder and louder. With no way of knowing whether Ganondorf would make it out alive, if the sudden change from everything she had known him as would last him for enough time to get him out of the factory as well, Zelda reached out, the cold metal of the door handle giving way to a gust of wind as she opened the door and finally found herself outside once again. Right then, not even the icy bite of the wind or the fear of knowing that they were still as far from being safe as they could be was able to dim the warmth that spread in her chest.

At her side, Link stirred slightly, opening up his eyes just enough for her note how he did not appear to be fully conscious yet, eyes darting from side to side as his legs buckled below him. For a second, Zelda was almost able to believe that she would be able to support his full weight, but then reality came crashing down around her, Link pulling her down to the ground with him. She must have scraped her knees as she pulled Link towards her, wrapping her arms around his chest to try to keep him from hitting his head against the asphalt, but the pain was too mild for her to give more than a second of thought. A few scrapes were nothing, not when compared to the fact that she sat there, trying her best to muster up the strength to lift him from the ground and continue running, only to find that she did not possess it. Whether she would have been able to do it if she had not first spent what must have been days without food or if it would always have come to this, Zelda sitting on the ground, so close to being able to run away that she wanted to cry, was impossible to say, but it did not change the fact that, in that moment, as Zelda sat there, Link having gone completely limp, she could not see any way out. It was only a matter of time before Ganondorf would be overwhelmed or the Yiga Clan would realise that with him being the only armed member of their group, Zelda and Link were easy targets.

Behind her, inside the factory, Zelda could hear another scream, but she no longer had the energy to try to guess whether or not it belonged to Ganondorf or the Yiga Clan. What did it matter when it would all lead to the same thing in the end?

However, as the scream was followed by the sound of approaching footsteps, no amounts of lying to herself about her not fearing what would come next would ever have been enough to erase the fact that Zelda could feel her heartbeat as a drum right next to her ears. Without thinking, she found herself bringing Link closer towards herself, leaning in over him to at least put another obstacle between him and the Yiga Clan, hoping that dying would not feel as bad if she was at least able to use her own death to buy him another chance to escape.

The footfalls grew louder, coming to a step next to her, and Zelda tensed in anticipation for a the pain she hoped would be followed by a quick end, only for someone to grab onto her arm, outright hauling her to her feet.

“Come on!”

She recognised the voice even before she opened her eyes, and still, for a second, Zelda could not believe what she was seeing, looking up at Ganondorf halfway convinced that he was not truly there, that, in just a moment, he would disappear again to reveal that he had only been the result of her mind’s desperate attempt at handling the fear of dying.

Blinking, Zelda realised that the weight of Link’s limp body had disappeared, that Ganondorf was yelling at her, but even then, she could not make out what he was saying. All she could do was to look over at him and realise that he had picked up Link. Distantly, she heard how the Yiga Clan were already running towards them, appearing from around the corner, pulling open the door, but none of it felt real, not as Ganondorf took her hand, somehow managing to break into a sprint, pulling her along as they both began to run along the streets.

They ran without thinking, Zelda following behind Ganondorf, knowing that if he were to let go of her, she would stumble to the ground and see him disappear into the maze of streets, alleys, and passages she had given up on making sense of. But he did not let go, and as she felt the world tilt around her as she stumbled across a loose stone, he tightened his grip on her hand further, continuing forwards, momentarily supporting almost all of her weight before she was finally able to place herself solidly on the ground again and move on her own.

Little by little, the fog began to lift, the fact that they were still somehow alive dawning on her. Catching a glimpse of the Master Sword, Zelda knew that the blood that was beginning to seep through the sheath was what had given them the chance to sprint away from the Yiga Clan, but she still could not connect the memory of all the times Ganondorf had gone to sit down next to her as he tried to comfort her and take away the things that hurt with what she had seen back inside the factory, with the person who moved effortlessly, not showing any signs of struggle as he carried Link through the streets and around corners, never letting go of him or looking like he would ever feel tired. He had fought in a way she had never seen him do before, the power behind his strokes looking nothing like the effort he had put into the fights back in Kakariko Village. There, he had been good, moving quickly and with a clear tactic behind his choices, but here, Zelda could still remember the rage that had almost seemed to seep out into the room around them as he had rushed forward to force back the Yiga Clan. Something had changed, something she could not name, and as she sprinted alongside him, legs and lungs burning as Zelda spotted the hills rising up in front of them as they finally reached the outskirts of Deya Village, Zelda knew that it was still there, carrying Ganondorf forwards, bringing him up the hill in only a few seconds, freeing him from the need to slow down to catch his breath.

That, however, was not a feat Zelda could copy. Swinging her arms to try to gain even the tiniest bit of momentum, Zelda felt how the ground disappeared below her, making her lose her footing as the mud she had just stepped into slid away before she was able to continue forwards. She barely managed to reach out to try to soften her fall, feeling the mud splatter up onto her face as she landed, as every last part of her mind instead flew towards the question of what was to come, how she would begin to slide down the hill, towards where the Yiga Clan was emerging from behind houses and cars, weapons raised, ready to strike.

“Zelda!”

She heard the yell come from above her, the ground moving as she continued to slide down the steep incline, pushing against the grass as she tried to find something to hold onto, but there was nothing to do. As everything rushed past her, all she could do was to wonder if she would have stood a chance if she had been more awake, if she would have been able to hold on to the roots that stuck out of the ground if her arms had not felt like they were made of lead.

Then, the world coming to a halt just as quickly as she had begun to slide towards the Yiga Clan, someone was able to catch her by holding on to the back of her jacket. Already before she was pulled backwards, away from the Yiga Clan, Zelda knew who had saved her. Looking up at Ganondorf she stumbled along beside him, grateful for how he did not let go of her for even a moment, instead slinging Link over his shoulder to wrap his right arm around her, Zelda was finally able to reach the top of the hill.

As they stood there, his heavy breathing finally revealing a hint of exhaustion, Ganondorf looked over at her, letting go of her to instead throw out his arm in the direction of where the roaring sound of water led their attention towards the river cutting through the landscape. “Continue to run towards the Great Plateau! I will be right behind you!”

“But—”

“Go!”

Zelda did not need to hear that again. Stumbling to keep herself from falling as she turned around, she left him behind, unable to focus on anything other than the burning sensation that filled every last cell of her body, her lungs struggling to take in enough air to keep her going as she sprinted away from the Yiga Clan, hearing how the sound of metal against metal signalled the beginning of another battle. How Ganondorf was hoping to win a direct confrontation with the Yiga Clan while not only being vastly outnumbered but also having to ensure that Link would not be injured or killed in the battle was beyond her, but the drops of blood were still warm against her skin, so Zelda knew better than to try to argue with his plan, instead putting what little energy she had left into running across the hill, only vaguely aware of having seen pictures of it in one of the atlases she and Ganondorf had read through back when they had planned to head to Lurelin Village. It felt like an eternity had passed since then, since their biggest worry had been whether or not they would be able to find a boat and sail across Faron Sea to get to Labrynna, Zelda having to find every last bit of strength that was still left in her body not to give up as she ran over the Hills of Baumer, hoping and praying that she was close to Proxim Bridge, that the Yiga Clan would not be able to corner them with their backs against the river, as the sound of heavy footfalls resumed once again.

This time, however, Zelda was able to maintain what little hope had bloomed in her chest as Ganondorf had all but carried both her and Link the last few metres up the hills around Deya Village, so, still sprinting as quickly as she could, she cast a glance over her shoulder.

Ganondorf was running towards her, the Master Sword still in his hand, blood dripping from the edge of it as he spotted her, raising it over his head, no doubt to let her know to continue rather than wait for him to reach her. She should have done that, but as Zelda stood there and watched, waiting for the Yiga Clan to appear right behind him, only for them to appear as a distant mass of orange and grey several hundred metres behind Ganondorf, she found that she could only stand there and watch as Ganondorf came closer and closer to her, still carrying Link like he didn’t weight anything at all.

The wind howled around her, but she could still hear that Ganondorf was yelling at her, the sound of his voice growing louder as he finally reached where she was standing. “Go! I managed to buy us some time, but they’re still following us! Go!”

It was not that it completely brought her back to reality and the fact that they would all die if they were not able to outrun the Yiga Clan from one moment to the next, but as Zelda looked at Ganondorf and saw how the strange fire in his eyes was slowly fading, looking more like embers than the lava it had been when he had first rushed past her to parry the attacks of the Yiga Clan, she found herself breaking into a sprint, the two of them running towards Proxim Bridge as the combined weight of Link, the Master Sword, and the rucksack he still had slung over his shoulder finally appeared to catch up with Ganondorf. Still, somehow, they were able to get halfway across the river before he collapsed, his legs buckling beneath him, sending him crashing to the ground. Zelda saw how he barely managed to keep himself from knocking his head into the stony surface of the banister next to him as he fought to keep Link from falling to the ground.

It was what she should have expected to happen from the very moment Ganondorf had first appeared at her side to lift up Link, and yet, Zelda found herself unable to do more than look over at him as Ganondorf screamed a curse into the air, already reaching out to try to hook one arm beneath Link’s knees to continue to run as Link opened his eyes.

Even from where she was standing, Zelda could see how, in a matter of seconds, Link had taken in the situation they were in, both the curse that still echoed around them, the sight of her, standing there with wide eyes, frozen halfway into the motion of stepping towards them, Ganondorf kneeling down next to where he was lying, and the sound of the Yiga Clan drawing closer as they used every second they were sitting there to minimise the distance between them. Clenching his jaw, his muscles shaking with every last movement, Link pushed himself up from the ground, pushing Ganondorf’s offer for help away as he somehow found the strength to get up from the ground on his own.

“Gan?” he looked down, Zelda seeing only the back of his head as he looked from Ganondorf and over towards where the Yiga soldiers had almost reached the other end of the bridge.

It was not nearly enough to know for certain what he looked like as he held out his hand, another second passing before Ganondorf took it, the two of them sprinting towards her once again, Zelda finally finding the strength to run alongside them, but even then, she recognised the determination that clung to the air around him as they sprinted away from the Yiga Clan.

Determined, tired, and with nothing but adrenaline to give them the strength to continue running, the three of them barely avoided the first attack of the Yiga Clan, Zelda feeling how the blade brushed against the back of her jacket. If she had still had her long hair, it would no doubt have cut it off or got tangled in it, and as they continued running, hitting the ground on the other side of the bridge with a thud, Zelda could not have been more relieved that she would never have to figure out if she would have had enough luck for the first option to be what would have happened.

They ran, continuing into the tall grass of Hyrule Field, continuing even as it felt like her lungs were going to burst in her chest and her legs would not be able to carry her another step. They could not stop, not when Zelda looked over at Ganondorf to see that the fire had died completely, leaving behind the ragged breathing of someone who had been pushed to and beyond their limits, not when Link was still swaying as he ran, the question of how he was even able to run a mystery that Zelda could not hope to solve.

The sound of fabric ripping brought an end to the blind panic, Zelda feeling her stomach twist for the moment it took her to realise that the Yiga Clan had not managed to catch any of them, that all that had happened was that they had managed to grab hold of their rucksack, the seams that kept the straps attached to the bag itself giving in to the strain, the result being that the rucksack fell to the ground, disappearing into the sea of orange and grey as the Yiga Clan continued towards them.

“Link, no!”

Looking to the side, Zelda saw how Ganondorf barely managed to stop Link before he was able to turn around, Link having for some inexplicable reason decided to run back towards the wall of orange and grey, having already been in the middle of a step as Ganondorf dragged him back, away from the Yiga Clan.

It would have been his death if Ganondorf had allowed him to go through with the plan Zelda could not figure out what might have been, but even as they continued to run across the fields, lungs burning and Zelda knowing that none of them could afford to waste any air on talking, Link still struggled against Ganondorf’s grip on his upper arm, pushing him away as he gestured towards a spot behind them, his voice rising and falling along with the sound of their breathing. “But—the Sheikah Slates—the pictures!”

“You are more important than some pictures!” Ganondorf yelled the words at him, and Zelda saw how he pushed himself to the brink of his abilities to force Link to continue running alongside them rather than turn around. “Now run!”

Finally, Link obeyed, Zelda noticing how he still looked back to cast one last glance towards the spot where their rucksack had disappeared beneath the sea of orange and grey, nodding to himself before finally running in the same direction as the rest of them. He did not say anything, nor would Zelda have expected him to. The way he so clearly poured everything he had left into keeping up with them was more than enough as they all continued to run, lungs and legs burning as the sound of footsteps behind them slowly became distant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, they have (somewhat successfully) fled from the Yiga Clan! Still, they will have to face other obstacles if they wish to bring an end to the cycle.


	21. Chapter 21

They were not able to keep on running through the night, but even as Zelda felt like she could have crumbled to the ground and stayed there for the rest of her life, every last muscle in her body feeling like it was on fire, even as they looked behind them, unable to spot even the faintest sign that the Yiga Clan could still be chasing after them, they could not stop to rest for the night. They never discussed that assessment of their situation, just as they never stopped to talk. Instead, the consequences of that fact simply were what happened, their sprint slowly becoming a run as their energy left them entirely, until all they could do was to continue to walk, exhausted and with the adrenaline being the only thing that kept them from sitting down to sleep right then and there, Zelda noticing how even her thoughts were slow and sluggish, struggling to finish even a single one as she looked to the side to see how the Great Plateau rose up towards the horizon, the skilfully decorated wall that had been built once in a century the number of which she could no longer recall to keep the plateau from beginning to slide down towards the towns that had been built beneath it visible as she squinted, the headache forming behind her eyes making it difficult to see anything at all.

The thud of someone falling to the ground was what brought her back to the present, to the fact that they were still moving and that she could not recall when the last time she had slept was.

Sitting on the ground, having pulled his legs up towards him, resting one hand on each knee as he leant forwards, Ganondorf looked like he was going to be sick, breathing hard before coughing. The seconds passed, Zelda looking over at him as he continued to struggle to breathe. There was no doubt about the fact that he knew that they could not stay there, that they would have to get up and continue moving if they did not wish for the Yiga Clan to find them again. Perhaps it was that certainty that kept Zelda from being able to voice the thought they must all have been thinking in that moment, making her instead look down at Ganondorf as she wished that she had anything to say, that she would be able to get a word out, able to do anything other than try to force enough air into her lungs to keep the feeling of being about to pass out at bay.

“How…” Ganondorf broke through the sound of all three of them struggling to breathe, the word strained as his breathing grew even more laboured, “how do they keep finding us? The first time—the museum—that made sense… we were the ones who stumbled across them, but Kakariko Village and now Deya? How do they know we are there?”

If Zelda had had an answer, she would have been glad to share it with him, but the truth was that she doubted there would even turn out to be one, that it was all not some great, cosmic joke, a way for the goddesses or whoever might be out there to find something to laugh at, to kill almost everyone in the world and leave the survivors with an unclear idea about fate and powers one of them could not use and then simply sit back and watch as they struggled to make sense of any of the things that kept on happening to them. It certainly felt like it was a plausible explanation as she stood there with no answer to give to Ganondorf, nothing to do other than to place her hands on her knees as she gasped for breath.

She would have expected for Link to do the same, for him to also look down at Ganondorf with the same blank look of someone who wished that they were able to give a better answer than silence. However, even as the sweat stung in her eyes, Zelda lacking the energy to try to wipe it away, she could see how Link, rather than looking at Ganondorf as he shook his head, was looking at where the Master Sword still hung from his hips, the sheath stained with blood as Ganondorf began to work on unbuckling the belt that kept it in place.

“I think…” Link let the words drag out, visibly having to force himself not to cry as he gestured towards the sword, “I think that they are tracking the sword.”

Total silence followed his suggestion. It did make sense, or at least it did in the middle of the exhaustion, Zelda looking down at the sword as she tried to find an argument against the idea, her mind remaining blank.

Apparently having done the same, Ganondorf stuttered for a moment before regaining the ability to speak. “But that doesn’t make any sense—how would they be able to track a sword?”

Link shrugged. “I don’t know. I am just saying that they did not attack us until after I had drawn the sword back at the museum, that I had just carried the sword minutes before they attacked us back in Kakariko Village, that I had it when they attacked us in the mall, and that they clearly made sure to take it away from me as they imprisoned Zelda and me. It has to mean something.”

Letting the sheath, the sword still in it, fall to the ground, Ganondorf looked down at it, the crease forming between his brows telling them that they were all pondering the same question long before he opened his mouth. “All right, but if that is the case, then what are we going to do about it?”

“We have to get rid of it. The risk that it might be what the Yiga Clan has been using to find us all these times is simply too great for us to continue to carry it with us.”

The answer was clear, but the way Link said it, emotionless and without even the slightest change to his tone, sent shivers down Zelda’s back. It was not until she had stepped forwards and heard the gasps coming from Ganondorf and Link that she realised that she had picked up the sheath, clutching it to her chest, the blood staining her tunic as she shook her head. “No, we have to keep it.” Zelda saw how Link prepared to argue against that, so she hurried to interrupt his interjection before it could even begin, silencing him with a glare. “It is important, I know it is. We have to keep it. I get that there might be a chance that it is what has lead them to us time and time again, but we can’t be sure that that is really the case. We did find them back before we had the sword, and with how they were so prepared to show us the museum, they had to have known that we would arrive.” she was aware of how she was searching blindly for any reason that would allow her to explain how the Yiga Clan had kept on finding them without blaming the sword, but as Link’s eyes lit up, a tiny bit of hope bringing some colour back to his pale cheeks, she continued. “This sword, I am sure that even if it is part of the reason they always seem to know where we are, it is not the entire reason. We have to keep it. I don’t know why or even if I will turn out to have been wrong, but I cannot let you leave this sword behind.”

The second passed, Zelda almost thinking that Link was about to tell her no when he finally let out a sigh. It could have sounded annoyed, as tired as Zelda felt, but as he looked up at her, she could see the gratitude on his face as he nodded. “If you think so, we will keep it. And… Zelda, thank you.”

“It was nothing.”

There really wasn’t anything she could possibly have said, not even if she could tell from the way Link stood up a bit straighter as she handed the sword back to him, hurrying to fasten the buckle, that it was nowhere close to being nothing, so Zelda fell silent, allowing herself a moment to take in the way the wind brushed past them, pulling her hair along with it.

Adjusting the belt, pulling at it for a moment, Link looked from her and over towards Ganondorf, what little joy that had finally found its way into his expression fading away as he shook his head. “Ganondorf, I am sorry about the rucksack… your Sheikah Slate, I know that—”

Ganondorf brushed the beginning of the apology aside, and even as Zelda tried to search for the little signs that he was doing it to spare their feelings, she could not find them as Ganondorf shook his head. “Don’t apologise. I meant what I said back there; you two are more important than anything we had in the rucksack, including the Sheikah Slates.”

“But your pictures—”

“Would not have brought her back. Besides, you lost your own phone as well, Link. Zelda too. I am not the only one here who lost the pictures I had left of my family.”

Link might have tried to hide it, but Zelda could still see the little smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth as what had clearly been another attempt at getting Ganondorf to accept his apology died before he could have said it aloud, Link instead looking down at the ground for a moment before he reached up to brush the few strands of hair that had escaped from his ponytail aside.

It had to be yet another effect of sleep deprivation, the fact that it took Zelda another second after Link had reached up towards his left ear, fiddling with the earring, to see what he was doing. Thankfully, it appeared that the same was the case for Ganondorf, for he simply sat there, not reacting at all as Link pulled his hands away again, the locks of hair not hiding the fact that he had taken out his earring as they fell back to cover his ear again.

If Link noticed their lack of reaction, he did not let it deter him, crossing what little distance there was between him and Ganondorf to place the earring in his hand, carefully closing his fist around it before he let go of Ganondorf again, taking a step back, looking almost like he was going to let it end there before he glanced back over at him again. “I—” the words were slow at first, but then, as if it had broken through a barrier, Link continued to talk, speaking faster and faster, “I know that it will not change any of what has happened, but I want you to have that. It won’t get the Slate back, won’t change… anything, but, still… I feel like you should have it.”

“But—” Ganondorf interrupted himself, opening his hand to look down at the little earring as he bowed his head. “Thank you.”

She wanted to move closer to them, to lean in to catch a glimpse of the earring to allow it to become more than a little, blue blur in the version of the world she was able to see through her need to lie down to sleep, but it did not feel right, not as Link beamed up at Ganondorf, for once looking like he was not mere seconds away from simply falling asleep where he stood the way Zelda felt might happen for her, looking down at Ganondorf’s hand.

That was when it changed, the smile disappearing to instead be replaced with a confused pull at his eyebrows, Link tilting his head to the side as he took a step closer to Ganondorf, once again reaching out to take his hand. But where it had been clear what he was trying to do the last time, how he had pressed the earring into his grasp, now, Zelda could only stand there, finding herself wondering if she had perhaps been too quick to assume that Link was not on the verge of passing out from exhaustion as he turned Ganondorf’s hand around to look at the back of it.

“Ganondorf…” Link gaze flickered from the hand to Ganondorf’s face, “what is this?”

At that, Zelda was unable to deny her curiosity the chance to find answers, and so, she stepped over towards them, leaning in to see just what Link was referring to.

It turned out to be a mark on the back of Ganondorf’s hand. At first, Zelda was tempted to push it aside as a scar, perhaps the result of his fight with the Yiga Clan, something they might have to treat in the future but was not an immediate problem for them in the present. But as she looked twice, finding herself unable to fully tear her gaze away, it became clear that it was more than that, that the mark bore a resemblance to the Triforce that was too great for her to ignore, consisting of three triangles, two of them made of thin, white lines running across the back of Ganondorf’s hand, the third one resting on top of the two others, a patch where his skin had lost almost all colour marking that particular triangle as different from the other two.

“I… I don’t know.” Ganondorf sounded just as puzzled as she felt, turning his hand to the side.

Zelda could not blame him for that, finding herself halfway expecting that the mark would disappear, turning out to have been nothing more than an illusion, the sun having hit them at a weird angle. It was an idea she already knew deep down to be a lie, the knowledge still not doing anything to take away the feeling of falling as Ganondorf turned his hand to reveal that it was still there, that he could rub the back of his hand against the fabric of his tunic without having it come off.

“I think it is the Triforce.” Link said it like it was nothing, voicing their thoughts with an air of it not truly mattering, like it was something they could brush aside, as he traced the lines on the back of Ganondorf’s hand, pausing at the filled-in triangle. “Which would mark this as the Triforce of Power… Zelda, show me the back of your hand!”

She must not have been quick enough, for even as Zelda stuck out her hand, doing her best to prepare herself for what she knew she would find as she turned it around to reveal the back of it, Link had already reached out to grab it. He did not show any outward reaction as she turned it around to reveal that, other than the drops of blood and the dried cakes of mud, her hand was bare, the attempt at scratching off the top layer of dirt revealing nothing but her own skin underneath, a cursory glance at her left hand revealing that it was just as bare as the right one, but Zelda knew that the thoughts must be whirling through his head as he pulled off his own gloves, turning his hands around in front of him like it was all a matter of finding the right angle for the sun to hit them and reveal a matching mark.

He tried to hide his reaction, Zelda seeing the tense line running along his neck as he finally lowered his hands back down to rest against his sides, but he was not able to completely erase the slight tremble from his voice as he spoke. “Ganondorf, you are the only one who has that mark… I think—I think that it is because you have earned it.”

“Earned it?” Ganondorf echoed, once again looking down at his hand. “What do you mean? Isn’t this the mark that followed the King of Evil in the legends? Surely, it can’t be a good sign that it has appeared right after we escaped from the Yiga Clan, can it?”

“I don’t know. I am just saying that I have never heard anything in the legends that would suggest that power is inherently a bad virtue to possess.” Link must not have noticed how the apprehension in Ganondorf’s eyes melted away to instead make way for the same soft smile that had followed the moment Link had handed him the earring, for he continued without pausing. “Besides, we know by now that those legends don’t have to mean anything for us, that other than giving us the cycle to break, the legends can’t control us more than we allow them to do, so, really, I do wholeheartedly believe that it is a good sign.”

Ganondorf did not look entirely convinced, but at least some of the fear had disappeared from his expression as he once again looked down at the mark on the back of his hand, brushing his fingers over the mark as he mumbled something to himself that Zelda could not hear.

He was, if not happy, then at least not sad and scared anymore just as Link was smiling over at him. By all means, Zelda should have been happy for them and pushed away all thoughts about why she had a bare hand to instead focus on the fact that it appeared that Ganondorf had somehow proved himself by summoning up the strength to get all of them safely away from the Yiga Clan. It was what she wanted to do, to push away her own insecurities to focus on the fact that, perhaps, things were finally beginning to go their way.

However, as she stood there, seeing Ganondorf look up at Link, the two of them undoubtedly already discussing the mark as they leant in over his hand, Zelda seeing how Link gestured towards the two triangles that had been left blank, all she could think about was her own bare hand, that, when she had needed them the most, her powers had still not manifested, leaving her to figure out a way out of the cell on her own,. And even then, she had not been able to save herself. Ganondorf had appeared, bringing her to Link and then all three of them to safety. Had he not shown up when he did, there was little doubt in Zelda’s mind that she would either have been captured and brought back to her cell, this time with all chances of escape removed, or killed during her escape attempt.

It was not right to look at Ganondorf, see the way he continued to steal glances down at his hand, and wonder what it would mean for her, but that was nevertheless what Zelda did. Was it a sign that, where she had failed to fulfil a plan, always beginning with the best of intentions only to fail towards the end, what it would have taken for her to be able to wield her powers would have been for her to see something she was still blind to? It could be the case, but if so, Zelda knew that they might as well just give up right then and there. No matter what the truth she had yet to see might be, the chances of her finally pushing through what separated her from her powers, of her becoming more than the third member of the group whom the two others had to protect, were almost non-existent, especially with how they did not have unlimited time for her to try to figure it out.

The only thing she was able to comfort herself with was the fact that she was at least not the only one to startle as Ganondorf’s stomach grumbled.

Letting go of his hand, Link looked at Ganondorf, drawing his brows together before he spoke to them, his tone of voice not leaving any room for arguments. “As soon as we reach a town, we are going to find something to eat and then rest for a moment.” Link finished the sentence with a nod, and, really, there was nothing for them to argue about, Zelda’s stomach grumbling in agreement, but that did not stop Ganondorf from trying.

With a laugh that was so obviously fake that it was impressive that he had even tried, Ganondorf brushed Link’s concern aside with a shake of the head. “No, I am fine, I—”

Link interrupted him before he was able to finish the sentence. “Did you eat at all while you were looking for me and Zelda?”

“Well, I ate a couple of mouthfuls of the canned beans I had been holding when I noticed that you were gone, but I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to stop and find something—”

“And how much time did it take for you to figure out where we were exactly?”

Pausing just as he had been about to open his mouth to instead look down, Zelda noting how he counted on his fingers, Ganondorf gave them all the answers they could have needed before he even opened his mouth, a fact that only served to underline the fact that Link had been right. “Uh, you were kidnapped… Saturday, I think, and then… it took Saturday, Sunday, and most of Monday as well to find you, so, all in all—I am not sure, everything began to become a bit fuzzy around Sunday, but a little over two days, I think?” he looked up at them, finishing the statement with what sounded more like a question than an attempt at assuring them that he was awake enough to make any decision.

It was an opinion that Link clearly shared with her, for, squaring his shoulders, he nodded, breathing in deeply. “All right, so, for the last three days, all you have eaten has been beans? Actually, don’t answer that, I know that it is what has happened, so we are going to head to the nearest town to find something to eat immediately. Zelda.” Link turned towards her, Zelda hurrying to try to hide the fact that she had been looking down at her hand, waiting for a Triforce to appear. “Do you know where the town closest to us is located and how far away it is from the path to the Great Plateau?”

“Uh.” she must have looked dumb as she stood there, struggling to recall a single memory of having learnt about the geography of Hyrule, but as the sound of Ganondorf’s stomach rumbling once again tore through the silence, Zelda forced herself to try to force it to appear in her mind, finally finding herself able to nod in response to the question. “Yeah, Outpost City should be just a couple of kilometres ahead and on the way to the entrance to the Great Plateau.”

“Good, we’ll go over there and then get a night’s rest. Understood?” no one responded, Link seemingly taking it as tacit agreement, for he continued over to Ganondorf, lowering his voice to a point where Zelda could barely hear what he was saying. “Come on. We will find you something to eat in a minute; we just have to get to this town.”

Ganondorf stumbled forwards, and Zelda saw how Link made a quick decision, moving over to stand next to him, pulling his arm around his shoulders to let Ganondorf lean against him as they began to walk towards Outpost City. Following along behind them, Zelda could only watch as they continued on that way, Link somehow able to support Ganondorf after everything they had been through despite being almost a head shorter than him. They did not look back over at her, allowing Zelda to not have to worry about either of them asking her how she felt while also feeling the pain of knowing that they had not even thought to ask her the question.

Reaching out in her mind, Zelda made one last attempt at finding her powers, trying to force the barrier between herself and the warm sense of knowing that there had been a meaning to everything that had happened to her and the world around her to budge, mentally yelling and screaming at it as it refused to move, refusing to show any signs of her being even the tiniest bit closer to figuring out what Impa had meant all those times she had tried to get her to talk about her own life rather than having her work on accessing her powers. If that was what the goddess whose soul had rested in some distant ancestor had wanted, for her to tell the people around her her deepest secret, then why was the barrier still there? Why had it not disappeared days ago?

Pushing one last time, Zelda could only be thankful for the fact that Ganondorf and Link did not look back at her, simply nodding in response as she gave them mumbled directions whenever they would reach a crossroads. At least that way, she did not have to hide how she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand from them, but as the world refused to become any clearer, she was not so sure that it was really something she was grateful for.

+++

After everything that had happened, Zelda would have assumed that she would sleep through the entirety of the night, waking up when Link would shake her awake to let her know that it was her turn to keep watch. Instead, she opened her eyes after what felt like only a few short hours of sleep, looking directly up at the ceiling of the entrance hall to the hotel they had decided to spend the night in, neither of them having had the mental of physical strength to begin to figure out which room would hold the least risk of stumbling across a corpse, instead lying down on the floor the moment they had found a chair to place beneath the door handle. Perhaps it was the adrenaline that was still present in her body that had forced her awake, unsettled by the fact that they all knew that the chair would not slow down the Yiga Clan for more than a second if they were to find them there. The reasons for why she was awake didn’t really matter that much, not as Zelda tried to roll over on to the other side and close her eyes to go back to sleep, only for the sound of someone pacing across the floor to keep her from finding any rest.

Trying one last time to relax and let go of the tensions in her muscles, the sound of someone muttering something to themselves under their breath stopping her from being able to go through with the plan, Zelda gave up on the idea of getting any more sleep, instead pushing against the floor to bring herself up into a sitting position. Next to her, Ganondorf was snoring softly, the jacket Link had insisted on giving back folded up under his head, Ganondorf pushing it to the side in his sleep, the movement revealing the mark on the back of his hand to still be there.

She could have closed her eyes and tried to ignore it yet again, but as Zelda sat there, the only light in the room being the pale light of the moon that was able to reach them through the windows, she was acutely aware of how her heartbeat marked the seconds she spent looking down at the mark, trying to envision what it would have looked like if it had been the Triforce of Wisdom rather than the Triforce of Power that had been filled in, if the appearance of the mark was something that could be felt, if Ganondorf would have been able to notice when it had first appeared had they not been in the middle of running for their lives when that had happened.

In the end, Zelda’s reason for tearing her gaze away from the mark, for moving to stand up, had nothing to do with somehow finding the strength necessary to let go of the fear that she had failed, that she should have seen a mark like Ganondorf’s on the back of her hand already, that her inability to use her powers for anything was a sign that, unlike Link and Ganondorf and the way they almost seemed to become entirely different people as they fought, she was not meant to be there, to walk alongside them as they headed towards the Temple of Time to find a way to bring an end to the cycle. Instead, it had everything to do with the fact that the sound of someone coughing less than ten metres away from her was enough to remind Zelda of the fact that she was not the only one who was awake and that she did not wish to let the Link find out what kind of thoughts were plaguing her. So she pushed herself away from Ganondorf, feeling the world tilt to the side for a moment as her body protested the idea of standing up before finally becoming still again, allowing her to look over at Link.

Standing there, with his hands clasped behind him, looking out of the windows, Zelda might almost have believed that he was as calm as he had tried to appear during the day, insisting on getting all of them their own can of can of paella, keeping the conversation going with a strained smile as they ate. But the illusion was soon broken, Link turning to the side, taking a couple of steps in one direction before turning on his heel to walk back with short, uneven steps that, while not necessarily loud, where also not ideal when taking into account the fact that they could not afford the be found by anyone.

Perhaps it would have been better if she had allowed him to continue to believe that she had not seen him. Zelda certainly knew that that was what she would have preferred, for Ganondorf and Link to grant her the blessing of being able to convince herself that they were not aware of how broken she felt inside, but as Zelda caught a glimpse of his expression, the light of the moon barely illuminating it enough to allow her to make out the worried lines around his mouth and the tense lines of his neck as he stopped to take a deep breath before pacing back across the room, she knew that she had to let him know that she had seen him.

“Link?”

She had tried her best to make her voice soft, to do everything in her power not to startle him, but Link still jumped at the sound of her voice, one hand pressed against his chest and the other one already resting on the hilt of his sword as he spun around to look over at her.

“Oh,” he said, his voice becoming only slightly softer, his hand not moving a centimetre away from the Master Sword, “I am sorry. I just thought that…”

He did not finish the sentence, nor was there any need for him to do so. Tiptoeing across the room, Zelda could already guess what he might have been about to say. The Yiga Clan had struck at once, their swift attack creating the impression that they had appeared from out of thin air. After that, after how she herself had struggled to let go of the immediate need to search for the exact source of any sudden sound even when she could hear that it was simply a matter of a plank that had been pushed over by the wind, Zelda could hardly blame him for having to take a deep breath before he let go of his sword again.

“Yeah,” Zelda whispered as she came to stand next to him, “I know.”

They stood like that for a minute, both of them turning towards the window to look out at the city around them.

Zelda had once read that Outpost City had been a military outpost in the past, that the old barracks the university had bought a couple of years ago had once been the outpost that had given it its name. It was a city that had been named for its military past, and yet, it had been just as defenceless as the rest of the world when the disease had struck, leaving the sickly sweet smell of rot that clung to the air around them as one of the few traces of the people who had once lived there.

“You know,” Link looked down at her, but it still took Zelda a moment to realise that he was talking to her, that she was not imagining that he had brought an end to the silence, placing one arm against the window pane to lean against it, his breath condensing on the glass as he continued, “I try my best to be brave. I promise you that I do, but I just…” he made a gesture that left Zelda unable to determine whether it had been aimed at the street outside or the world as a whole, “I can’t. I can’t be the hero that I am supposed to be; I can’t continue with this fight and pretend that I don’t spend every single second worrying that the Yiga Clan is going to find us again or that we will arrive at the Temple of Time to find that we are unable to destroy the cycle. I just—the thoughts, they _keep on_ repeating, and I don’t know how to get them to stop or if I will ever be able to.” he gripped his head, his fingers digging into his hair, knuckles turning white as he forced out a strangled sentence through gritted teeth. “I am supposed to be the hero of legends. I am meant to be the one who can claim the Triforce of Courage for himself, but all I am is a coward who was prepared to risk the world to get a chance to sleep through the night, only to find that I am not even able to do that. What am I?” he looked over at her with wide eyes, despair and fear twirling around just behind them. “I don’t know what or who I am anymore—nothing makes sense, and I just want to know what we are supposed to do!”

He knew that she did not actually have any of the answers he was looking for. That much was clear as he turned from her, his knuckles becoming even whiter, combining with the pale light of the moon to give him the appearance of someone who was already dead, a skeleton still walking among them. There was nothing for her to say or do, but as he let out a sob, Zelda could not remain silent for even a moment longer. Then, the risk of making it all even worse was simply one she would have to accept, one she had to push aside to be able to talk with him and do everything she could to take away the worry in his eyes.

Reaching out to gently pull his hands away from his hair, careful to untangle to locks of hair that had been caught around his fingers, Zelda could not tell whether the fact that he did not try to stop her or resist, instead letting his arms go limp, leaving Zelda to try to keep him from pulling out his own hair, was a good sign, but as he did not tell her to stop, she continued, pushing the tousled strands of hair back behind his ears before she met his gaze. “Link, I know that you might not believe me or find yourself unable to trust me when I say this, but you are none of those things. You are not a coward. I know for a fact that you are one of the most courageous people I have ever met,” she began, taking his hands in hers, running her thumb along the back of his hands as she continued, “look, we all needed this one chance to get a full night’s sleep. You weren’t being a coward for stating that, not when it would have been foolish to think that we would be able to go on for much longer without getting a chance to rest.”

A moment where Zelda was almost able to believe that she had managed to get through to him passed by, slow and, while still weighed down by same fear and shame that had followed her out of her house all those months ago, slightly more bearable than the ones before, before Link turned his head sharply to the side, breaking eye contact.

“Zelda, you are the last person who is able to tell someone not to think badly of themselves.” he said the words like they were an irrefutable fact, and somewhere deep down, Zelda knew what would come next, but she still found herself making an attempt at avoiding having to hear the words.

“What—” her voice shook, Zelda barely finding the strength to keep herself from drawing further attention to it by clearing her throat, “what do you mean?”

He let out a humourless laugh, the sound dying halfway through the gesture as he cast a glance in the direction of where Ganondorf was still sleeping, blissfully unaware of the conversation taking place only a few metres away. “Zelda, I have seen the way you kept on looking down at your hands after we discovered the mark on Ganondorf’s—”

“That—”

Link did not even give her the chance to try to think of a way to explain away all the times she had almost been able to convince herself that the mark would show up in a moment, only to then look down and see that the back of her hand was as bare as it had always been, brushing all excuses aside with a wave of the hand. “Even if we ignore that, I have seen how you kept on closing your eyes every time we had just made it out of a situation we should not have survived. Zelda, I am not dumb; I know that you are pushing yourself to your limits to try to find your powers—I know that you are most likely pushing way past those limits as well. Just…” he shook his head, pain flaring up in his eyes for the brief moment she was able to hold his gaze, “don’t think that Ganondorf and I are not paying attention to you as well, for we are, and trust me when I tell you that we are both worried about you.”

It was meant to be a comfort, for him to tell her that, despite the thoughts that had gone through her head during the day as he and Ganondorf had moved along without a second glance in her direction, thoughts he had no doubt noticed as well, they cared about her and worried about her and how she was doing. Rationally, Zelda was able to recognise that, to try to use it to push back down the growing anger that was bubbling in her stomach, but it was only enough to delay the inevitable for a moment, the truth soon bursting out of her despite her efforts to keep it to herself.

“Well, you know what Link? I _am_ upset that I still haven’t figured out how to use something I don’t even know what is. Really, Link, I am!” her voice was growing sharper, but even though Zelda saw how Link eyes widened as he took a step backwards, away from her, she still did not stop. “I wish that I could look at it like you look at your sword and know that even if I have to train to be able to wield it, at least it is right there in front of me. I wish that I hadn’t been deadweight for you and Ganondorf this entire time, that I had thought about the fact that it would be better to not even begin to believe that I would reach my powers soon when I saw you fight with your swords like you had been training since birth. Really, I wish that you did not have to see me struggle with trying to reach out towards my powers time and time again, but, apparently, I cannot even figure out how to do something so many of my ancestors did, so, here we are, Link. You and Ganondorf are just going to have to deal with the fact that I still have no idea about what I am meant to do, and trust me when I say that I know how difficult that is.”

He gaped at her, the seconds feeling like hours as the guilt came to replace the anger and hurt, trying its best to push her to apologise and tell him that she had not meant it. Link would have believed her, and if he didn’t, he would have convinced himself that he did, allowing both of them to go back to the silence without having to push the issue further. It would have been for the better, sparing herself as well as him from the pain of what they might say next, but as the seconds trickled away, Zelda stayed quiet, pressing her lips together as she waited for Link to say something, to shake his head at her and tell her that she had some serious issues about failing and perfectionism like she was not already aware of that, to do anything at all.

With how he had crossed his arms in front of his chest, Link was clearly planning to do just that, but in the end, he ended up bowing his head, looking down at the ground rather than her as he spoke. “That… Zelda none of what you are saying about yourself is what Ganondorf and I have been saying when we would talk about you. None of it is, I promise you that.”

Zelda wanted to hold on to the hurt and the feeling of righteous anger, to tell him that she did not believe him. Being angry and annoyed at the fact that she had yet to figure out her own powers was far easier than letting it overwhelm her with the realisation that she had brought the team close to death multiple times by now.

She wanted to cling on to the feeling, but it disappeared into thin air, leaving her to sigh, already feeling how the last bit of anger evaporated. “You don’t have to promise me anything. I—I already know that.” hugging herself, Zelda was grateful for the fact that the darkness might be able to hide how the sting in her eyes told her that she was close to tears. “I don’t know why I said what I said, but I did not mean it, not most of it at least. I know that you and Ganondorf trained for ages to be able to fight against the Yiga Clan, I know that you have both done and sacrificed so much. I…” she shook her head, “Hylia, I am rambling. What were we doing? Oh, yeah—I was trying to tell you that you are not a coward before I lost my head. I still mean that, you know.” the cowardly part of her wanted to continue to stare down at the ground, but Zelda forced herself to look up, to meet Link’s gaze. His eyes seemed almost colourless in the glow of the moon, the same silver colour as the blade of the Master Sword back when he had swung it through the air, the tip of it stained red as small drops of blood flew through the air. Outside, the city was quiet, making Zelda’s voice sound even smaller as she continued. “You are not a coward, Link. You never have been, not to me at least, and, honestly, I doubt that you ever will be. Do you remember back when we first met? You jumped in front of a bear to save the lives of two strangers—a bear!” she had hoped that it would be enough to bring back even the slightest hint of a smile, but Link simply continued to look over at her, his face blank, something dark swirling in his eyes that made Zelda have to fight the urge to give up. “I don’t know many cowards who would be willing to face a bear to save two people they had never met before, but you did that. You saved our lives, just like you found and saved Epona. You are brave, braver than most people I know, and I swear that you are going to realise it soon enough and then it will help you do things that you had never thought possible, to earn a mark on your hand just like Ganondorf—you just have to believe that it will happen and th—”

“Stop.” Link whispered the word, but it was still more than enough for Zelda to hear it, making her stop halfway through a sentence.

The damage had already been done, Link’s gaze becoming distant as he once more stepped away from her, running his fingers through his hair before stopping to clutch his head in his hands.

In the silence, Zelda could hear how his breathing grew quicker, shallower, the little wheezes that filled the room as he fought to bring enough air into his lungs to combat the feeling of drowning on dry land she knew all too well being all that broke through the monotonous silence of the dead village.

It was impossible for her to say how much time had passed as his breathing slowly found a less hectic rhythm once again, nor did it matter. As Link let his hands fall to raise his head and look up at her, it was clear that, to him, even if it had been a matter of seconds or minutes, it could just as well have been years.

“Zelda,” he said, and she could hear how he swallowed back the urge to tell her to forget it, to brush it aside as being nothing, before he continued, “I—there is something you need to know. Uh—” he was fidgeting with the hem of his tunic, the frayed edges allowing treads to come loose as he crumpled it up in his fist, pressing the last few centimetres of fabric into a tight ball, “I—and I need you to promise me that you will not—I don’t know—that you will not try to make it better, that you will not interrupt me before I have told you everything, all right? I just need to get this over with, so, please, don’t make me have to figure out how to begin again, will you?”

She managed to nod and wait for a couple of seconds before realising that he was still looking at her, an intense gleam in his eyes. “Yes,” Zelda said clearing her throat as she did everything in her power not to look away, meeting his gaze with equal intensity, “I promise.”

It was difficult to say whether he let out a sigh or if all sounds simply appeared louder than they were in the silence as Link’s gaze drifted skyward for a moment before he began. “Thank you. And I am sorry for making you promise that, but I just… I knew that I would lose courage if you began to try to tell me that everything would be all right, that I was—I guess still a good person despite it all, so I just had to get that out of the way. All right, uhm.” they would never be able to get the creases out of his clothes as he held the little ball of fabric even tighter, but it did not matter, not as he looked out of the window, the moonlight falling across his face. “I haven’t always been this afraid of the water. There was the regular fear back when I first learnt to swim, whether or not I would be able to stay afloat and all that, but after I learnt that I would always be able to swim back to the shore, I really loved going to the river near my home, Lake Akkala, and just swim there when the weather was good enough. Mostly I went there with my little sister, Aryll.” he paused.

Zelda could tell how he was waiting for her to connect the dots, for the puzzle to be finished and for her to tell him that she knew where the story would go from there and that it did not say anything about him. She could not blame him for that, not as she had to bite her tongue to keep the question from interrupting him, but, somehow, she was able to stay silent and let him continue.

His voice was growing shriller, breaking twice as he had to clear his throat. “We had just gone for a swim back when the disease struck. I had been underwater, looking at the stones on the riverbed, so when I came up, it wasn’t immediately clear to me that something was wrong. I did see Aryll floating in the water, not moving at all, but for the first couple of seconds, I was able to convince myself that she was just relaxing, looking up at the sky or something. I—in hindsight, I should have realised that something was wrong before that but I did not. It took me—Hylia, it took me way too long to realise that something was seriously wrong, so by the time I had reached her and pulled her out of the river, there was nothing to do. She was just… I don’t even know if she died of the disease or—” a sob broke through his voice, Link gasping for air as he wiped the tears away. “The disease made people sweat to a point where they died of dehydration, but she had been surrounded by water, and I don’t know what that would have meant for the way the disease would have progressed if I had noticed it before, if I had been quicker to realise that she needed my help and pulled her to the shore the moment she lost her mobility. I have no idea if I could perhaps have saved her back then, and I know you are going to tell me that I couldn’t, that with how many people who must have been sitting in their bathtubs or something like that, it would not have made a difference, but I can’t know that for sure. Maybe she would still have been dead even if I had reached her in time, and maybe she would have died just the same, but it doesn’t change the fact that she died out there.”

Outside the windows, it seemed like they shadows were growing longer, long tendrils of darkness reaching out across the street, pushing away the pale moonlight as they reached out towards them, moving up across the window pane to rest just a few centimetres away from Link’s face as he turned from her to look out at the empty street. The silence was thick in the air, time appearing to slow down as he fell silent, leaving Zelda to simply look at him. A few locks of hair had fallen in front of his face, creating a curtain that looked like all colour had been stolen from it, appearing almost white as it kept her from being able to look directly at him, from even thinking about looking into his eyes. Still, there was no need for her to cast even the briefest glance at his face to know how he must be feeling.

When she had been younger, Zelda had wished that she had had a sibling, a wish that lasted her well into her teenage years before she finally gave up on the dream. But back then, back when she had been six, seven, eight years old and fled to the library to get away from the other children, the wish that she had known someone who could understand what she was going through, someone she could talk with and help through the years as they would have helped her had been a dream that had filled most of her spare moments. If that had happened, if she really had had a sibling, Zelda could only imagine how much worse it must have been to lose everything, to look back at her home and make the decision to leave everyone behind, to know that she was not even able to bury anyone to at least give them that last bit of peace, leaving them in there where they had died. It would already have been hard enough to go through all of that, and then came the fact that Aryll might have drowned. Zelda had never thought much about that risk, having been calmed by the fact that she knew how to swim, but now, standing there and looking over at how Link kept on staring out of the window like he would find the answers to every last question in his life out in the empty street, she could not let go of the image of a little girl with the same short, blonde hairstyle as her own floating in the water, the vision bleeding over into the look of shock and horror that had been etched into Link’s face when she had shown him her new haircut. If Ganondorf had been right about her looking like Link’s sister, it was no wonder that that had been his reaction to that.

Perhaps Link had known in which direction her thoughts would spiral the moment he fell silent, for it was the weight of a hand on her shoulder that snapped Zelda out of her thoughts, causing her to look up to meet his gaze.

Link confirmed the thought a moment later, tilting his head to the side ever so slightly, unable to hide how he stared at the tips of her hair rather than her face as he spoke. “I am sorry about not telling you any of this sooner. I—back when you cut off your hair, that should have been the moment I told you, not now, not after we have got so many other issues to worry about. I just…” he shook his head, “I was too scared to admit it back then, I think.”

“Hey.” Zelda reached up, placing her hand on top of his, giving it a light squeeze. “It is all right. I get why you didn’t tell me back then—there’s no need to apologise for it. It can be difficult to share something like that, even when you know that those around you can understand.”

There was an expectant pause. Zelda could see how Link was waiting for her to return the gesture, to open up and begin to talk about her own past. It was an expectation she could understand, for him to look at her and count the seconds until she too would begin to share the stories about her past she had kept from everyone all this time. It would be the right thing to do, to show him that, like he had trusted her with the truth about the death of his sister, she would trust him as well. However, there was not much she had been able to do correctly, not when the world had first gone silent and certainly not now after she had spent days going nearly entirely without sleep, so she did not open up, did not take a deep breath and begin to tell him about running back and forth between the kitchen and her father’s bedroom with glass after glass of water in an attempt at delaying the inevitable.

He tried to hide the disappointment that flickered across his face, but even then, as Link looked to the side, Zelda following his line of sight to find both of them looking towards Ganondorf, he failed to hide it completely, a little of it bleeding into his voice as motioned towards him. “I… look, Zelda, I know that I should have told him about this a long time ago, but I need some time to figure out how to tell him this as well, so will you please—”

“Don’t worry.” she held up her hands in front of her, doing her best to mask the hurt in her voice at the idea that she would have told Ganondorf despite how Link had made it clear that it was a subject that was difficult for him to talk about. “I won’t tell him.”

The smile on Link’s face was weak, but at least it was there as he bowed his head, still not taking his gaze off Ganondorf. “Thank you. I know that he will understand, but I just… I need to figure out just how and when to tell him.”

Zelda could only agree with that. So far, it did not seem like there was anything Ganondorf had not been able to understand. Really, as they stood there, the seconds ticking away between them, Ganondorf still fast asleep, it was all so clear to her that, of the three of them, Ganondorf was easily the one who was the most competent, the one who had consistently been able to think on the spot and use his strength to defend them all while also allowing them to share their pain with him. The memory of the shirt she had been given only moments after they had first met each other flashed in her mind, and she could nearly feel the softness of the fabric in her mind, see the green and red design of it. If there was anyone who would understand, it would be him.

“Yeah,” Zelda whispered, “he will understand it.” turning towards Link, she saw how he was not quite able to stifle a yawn, the way he tried to hide it behind his hand only serving to make it all the more obvious. She should perhaps have frowned and reminded him that it was important that he was able to get some sleep, but as she looked over at him, Zelda could not hide the tiny smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I think that it is time for you to sleep for a few hours as well, Link. Don’t worry, I can take the watch now.”

He did not try to argue with her, instead sending her a grateful nod before leaving her to go and curl up on the floor. Before long, his breathing had grown softer and slower, the silence being the only thing Zelda had to keep her company as she once again looked out of the window and out at the city outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the group is still facing problems, at least Link has begun to open up a bit about his past.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry about this chapter being late. To make a long story short, the charger for my computer stopped working, and I had to wait three days for the one I ordered to arrive. Anyway, I apologise for the delay - hopefully, the chapters will be on time from now on :)

Neither of them brought up the conversation from the night before as they woke up in the morning, Zelda having to rub the sleep out of her eyes, feeling the effect of the longer watch she had taken as Ganondorf continued to say her name until she finally found the strength to push herself up from the floor. They packed up their things in silence, the task taking minutes with how their supplies only consisted of the few cans of food they were able to carry in their pockets and the bottle of water they had found room for next to it, Link putting the belt that kept the sheath in place back on as the last thing before they left the hotel and began the long walk through the empty city.

Even with the sun shining down at them, the sky gradually losing the orange hue that made it look like fire was rising up from somewhere behind them to instead become a brilliant blue, Outpost City was quiet around them, allowing them to hear every last step, the gravel crunching beneath their feet as they followed a network of paths near one of the residential areas, using the sun to make sure they went in the right direction as they finally left the city behind, hopefully for good.

They continued on like that, reaching the Forest of Time by midday. With how the ancient trees towered up in front of them, still holding on to their leaves even though most of them had begun to lose their vivid green colour, it was a sight that Zelda knew would have made her pause in the past, having to take a moment to simply take in the fact that she was looking at something that was one of the oldest historical locations in Hyrule, the texts they had studied in their history classes having mentioned the forest going as far back as to the first Hyrulean Civil War, but now, they simply pushed past where the vegetation had begun to spread to cover the path, the foliage above them soon blocking out the sun, only allowing thin pillars of light to reach the forest floor. It was a beautiful sight, but now, the only thing Zelda could focus on was the fact that they had to get through it to make their way to Gatepost Town where they would finally find the entrance to the Great Plateau and the Temple of Time. A forest, no matter how beautiful and despite the historical significance it held, was only an obstacle in their path.

So they continued to walk. Moving ahead of Ganondorf and Link, Zelda could hear the faint sound of a hushed conversation from behind her, and for once, there was not that little insistent doubt about whether or not they were trying to let her know that she was not a part of their conversation echoing at the back of her mind . Instead, she was able to recognise the fact that she was the one of them who was not adjusting her pace to them, that, by walking in front of them and pushing the leaves aside to let them through, she had taken on the role of being the one who had to look down at the ground to try to figure out if they were going the right way.

It should have been an easy task, simply following the path, and Zelda had to admit that that was also all she had thought it would entail when they had made their way past the first bushes, the forest soon closing behind them, hiding the outside world from them to instead let the world around them consist of tree trunks, leaves, and wild vegetation no matter where she looked, but now, as the ivy began to move in towards the dusty pathway, soon hiding it from sight completely, all Zelda had to guide them was a hope that if she just kept herself from looking to the sides, she would be able to walk in a straight line through the forest. Behind her, Ganondorf and Link followed along without a word, but Zelda could still sense how their conversation died out after less than an hour inside the forest, the fact that they were lost among the trees and vines instead dawning on them.

It was beginning to grow colder, the sparse lighting that was able to reach them through the thick foliage disappearing as night began to fall when they heard it, the sound of rustling.

Before she was able to realise her mistake, Zelda had looked away from the tree directly in front of her, instead following the sound to find herself staring at a bush to the right of the path they had drawn where a brief patch of softer ground had allowed for them to leave a trail of footprints behind them. The leaves where shaking slightly, and Zelda had barely taken a step towards it before Link was at her side, holding his arm out in front of her to keep her back. He did not say anything, but with the way his hand was already resting on the hilt of his sword, the look he sent her lasting for a fraction of a second before he had turned his attention back towards the bush, Zelda did not need to hear him say anything, not when everything about his behaviour screamed ‘danger’ to her.

The sound of rustling grew louder, Zelda barely able to hear the sound of something moving towards them, the heavy footfalls almost drowned out by the sound of her heart beating furiously in her chest and the metallic sound of Link drawing his sword. Whatever it was that was making the sound, it appeared that it was aware of both the fact that they had noticed it and that it could use the vegetation around it to hide it from sight and mask the sound of it approaching. The sound of something breaking was the next thing she heard and the only sound she was able to register before a blur of grey fur came rushing out of the bush, leaping up into the air, leaving her unable to do anything other than freeze, time slowing down around all three of them as the monster barrelled towards her, showing no signs of stopping at all. The next thing Zelda knew, she had been pushed to the ground, Link meeting the monster in her place.

It was only then, scrambling to try to move up, to put herself into a less vulnerable position as pain shot through her elbows from where she had hit the ground, that Zelda was able to see what had happened and what would happen now, how the monster she now recognised as a wolf knocked Link to the ground, thankfully losing its balance in the jump so that, rather than landing with its full bodyweight on top of him, it continued forwards, rolling to the side. However, even then, Zelda heard how all the air in Link’s lungs was punched out of him, how he fought to regain his composure, holding on to the sword so tightly that it looked like his fingers should have left imprints along the hilt as he rose to his feet.

Feeling someone reach out to wrap an arm around her, Zelda could only barely make out the fact that Ganondorf had come to help her up from the ground from the way his red hair made it seem like the forest was on fire around her, everything blurring together in her mind to allow her to focus on nothing but the wolf as it began to circle around them.

As the wolf opened its mouth to snarl at them, Zelda could see how blood and gore dripped from its tusks, a bit of fur that did not match its own grey coat hanging from around its jaw, its steps small and precise. There were no doubts about how it was waiting for Link to lower his guard for even the briefest of moments to allow it to lunge at them again.

Huddling together in the circle the wolf drew around them, the perimeter constantly moving closer and closer to them, Zelda felt Ganondorf’s heartbeat speed up as he pushed her behind him, keeping himself between her and the wolf by slowly spinning them around, but although she knew that the same must be the case for herself, that they must be able to see the same panic on her face as the wolf looked directly at her, its eyes shining with intelligence, she felt oddly removed from what was happening. It was not that she was able to believe that it was all just a bad dream or that it was not something she should have been able to predict might happen, the memory of the bear and how Ganondorf had carried an axe with him when they had first met to prepare for such a thing echoing in her mind, but rather that there was something between herself and what was happening, a wall she could not look past, that made it feel almost laughable to think that it was really happening. They had survived three attacks from the Yiga Clan, but now they were here, faced with the possibility of a wolf being what would lead them to their end.

The wolf attacked without warning, one second still walking around them, the next rushing towards them, tusks bared as it sprinted, the light sound of paws against ground sounding unfitting for such a large animal as it covered the few metres it still had left between itself and their group. Zelda could hear a scream that might have been her own, her vision becoming dark as Ganondorf held onto her, letting her bury her face against his tunic, her hand instantly coming up to shield her face in what she knew would be a hopeless attempt at protecting herself, but rather than experiencing a sudden pain or the sensation of having half a hundred kilos of solid muscle, bones, and fur make contact with her, she heard a grunt and a yelp, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the ground.

Link had managed to meet the attack. Zelda knew that even before she opened her eyes, but she still heard how a gasp escaped her as she looked over towards Link, the Master Sword held out in front of him, the edge of it lined with a thin stripe of blood and fur. In front of him, the wolf was limping slightly, moving away from him, its head moving from side to side as Link shifted his weight to the side, lowering his centre of gravity as he once again prepared himself for an attack.

He did it not a second too early. Despite how Zelda could see the trickle of blood that stained the fur around the left side of the wolf’s neck, continuing down towards its leg, it moved fluidly as it rushed towards them. This time, Zelda kept her eyes open long enough to see Link swing the blade, the tip of it becoming a blur as the wolf let out a whimper, retreating for a second before making another attempt at moving past the weapon, using its momentum to push itself forward.

It happened in the blink of an eye, Link holding up his sword, not quite managing to meet the wolf as it ran towards him, with the result being that the wolf met the flat side of it, using its weight to knock both Link and the sword to the ground.

The scream that tore through the air could have belonged to all of them, all other sounds drowned out by the thud that rose up from the ground as Link stumbled backwards, for a moment looking almost like he would be able to recover, only to then fall completely, landing flat on his back, the Master Sword hitting the ground with the sound of metal clattering. The wolf was over him in seconds, snapping at him as Link barely managed to get his arms out in time to push back against its chest. Still, as he lay there, it was clear that it was not enough, the wolf continuing to fight, blood dripping from its jaw.

“No, Zelda!”

It was only as Ganondorf reached out, barely managing to grab onto her wrist, that Zelda became aware of how she had moved forward, away from the illusion of protection that she had been able to convince herself she enjoyed by staying close to him, the few metres that separated her from Link’s struggle to keep the wolf from being able to reach him being reduced to one before Ganondorf stopped her.

The world was right around her, and yet, as Zelda looked from Ganondorf, noting the panic in his eyes, but unable to fully connect it to what was happening, towards where the Master Sword lay on the ground where it had landed after having been knocked out of Link’s hand, it all felt so far removed from her that she felt almost calm as she reached out to force his hold on her to loosen, withdrawing her arm before turning back around to continue towards the sword. Behind her, she could hear Ganondorf’s whispered pleas for her to come back, could hear how the fear coloured his voice, the pitch rising as he tried to balance between having to ensure that she heard him and the unspoken fear that a sudden noise would further agitate the wolf, perhaps even give it the last bit of adrenaline that would lead to it being able to move past Link’s attempts to push it away, his grunts becoming more and more strained with every second, but it all felt like it was coming from far away, like it was not really directed at her as Zelda reached out, holding on to the hilt of the sword with both hands.

It was heavy, heavier than she had expected for it to be with how effortlessly Link had always wielded it, but it was all physical, something she pushed past as she looked back just in time to see how Link’s grip on the fistful of fur he had been able to use to push back against the weight of the wolf weakened. It was a matter of seconds, but that was all the wolf needed to strike.

The animal moved in a flash of grey, Zelda only certain that it had hit its target as Link let out a strangled cry, three long lines of red having been drawn along his right arm by the time he had regained what little hope he had of staying alive by once again pushing back against the wolf.

Zelda raised the sword, putting as much force into the throw, and although she knew that she should have worried about a thousand things, in that very moment, the only thought that went through her mind was that she had to act now, that all thoughts of aim and strength would have to wait for later, making her let the sword sail through the air towards him with a cry. “Link! Here!”

It hit the ground, sliding through faded leaves and ivy to come to a stop directly next to his head. He had noticed it, Zelda knew that, could see the way his eyes flickered towards the blade for a second. With a yell, Link shoved the wolf to the side, the animal sliding over the ground for a moment before it was able to stop. It was back up a second later, once again snarling at them, but by then, Link had already rolled over, grabbing onto the sword as he somehow found the strength to get back up again, and with the effects of the adrenaline that Zelda could see written across Link’s face, in the way every last muscle tensed in preparation as the wolf turned towards him again, the wolf did not stand a chance as it put everything into gaining more and more momentum as it made one last attempt at breaching Link’s defences.

She heard it more than she saw it, closing her eyes the moment before the wolf made contact with the blade, but even then, she could still see it in her mind’s eye, how the sound of something heavy moving across the ground was followed by flesh being forced to give way as Link swung his sword, the metal cleaving the air before making contact with the wolf. After that, it was quiet. There were no whimpers, no more snarls, nothing at all other than the feeling of someone walking over to put an arm around her, gently turning her away from the carcass as the person, undoubtedly Ganondorf, tried to rub tiny, comforting circles into the spot between her left shoulder blade and the shoulder itself. He was saying something, but Zelda could not make out the individual sounds, everything bleeding together in her mind to leave her with nothing but the sensation of Ganondorf looking back, the sound of a sword being pulled free from something wet and heavy followed by footsteps marking the moment Link walked over to join them, and, finally, Zelda could open her eyes again.

He was stained in blood. It was not dripping from him, did not make it look like he had been swimming in it, and somehow that made it even worse. If it had covered all of him, Zelda might have been able abstract from the fact that she knew where it came from and that she had been part of the reason that it was now there. But seeing him wipe the blade of the sword against his trousers, the attempt at cleaning it only serving to cover the entirety of the blade in the same thin layer of dirt and blood before he sheathed it, his cheeks stained with drops of blood just as the sleeves of the jacket he had borrowed from Ganondorf, the jacket Zelda had slept under only a few days ago, were now a brilliant red rather than the cream they had been when they had first been given the jackets back in Kakariko Village, all of it served to underline the fact that she could not escape from having been part of the reason that he was now looking like that. Of course, the alternative was far worse to think about, Zelda having to do everything in her might to keep herself from looking at where she knew she would see the marks the wolf had left run down his right arm if she did not want to completely lose herself to the thoughts of what could have happened if she had been just a bit slower, if he had not been able to muster up the strength needed for that last exertion, but it did not do much to take away from the horror of seeing Link covered in blood.

As Ganondorf gasped at her side, Zelda knew that his thoughts mirrored hers, but he was still able to clear his throat and break through the silence that had descended on them. “The Heroines—Link, are you all right?”

Following Ganondorf’s line of sight, Link looked down at his arm where the blood was beginning to drip from his wounds, an almost surprised expression passing over his face, his hand almost coming up to touch the area before he froze, letting his arm fall back against his side to look over at them. “I… I think so. I…” Link shook his head. “I can’t… _feel_ it.”

“You can’t feel the wound?” Ganondorf echoed, his voice finally bringing Zelda back to the world around her.

Making sure to keep her voice soft, not making any sudden movements, she reached out towards Link, pausing for a moment before she made contact to give him time to draw back. He did not, and so, Zelda pushed the fabric that clung to the blood and dirt around the wound aside to get a better look at just what had happened.

It looked horrible. That was the first thought that went through her head, the fact that the blood still dripped from his arm, that it was mixed with the dirt that had been smeared all over him as he had fallen into the mud on the ground. However, as Zelda forced her instinctive reaction back, keeping it at bay to get a closer look at the gashes, she knew that, while serious and possibly life-threatening if they did not make sure to stop the bleeding and make an attempt at disinfecting the area around the wound, most of the blood that was dripping onto the ground was not Link’s. As long as they acted quickly, he should be fine.

Still, her looking back up, careful not to meet Link’s gaze as she told them that, did not do much to remove the fear in Ganondorf’s eyes. If anything, the mention of time being of paramount importance in that moment only seemed to cause the panic to grow, Ganondorf having already torn a strip of fabric off the hem of his tunic as he gestured towards her. “So we have to bandage it, don’t we?”

There was no need to answer, not as Ganondorf had already begun to wrap the makeshift bandage around Link’s arm, Link clenching his jaw, visibly having to fight not to let the pain show as Ganondorf made sure to wrap it tightly around the wound before tying two knots on top of each other.

Looking only slightly less panicked, Ganondorf stepped away from Link, not taking his eyes off his face for even a moment, his voice growing higher as he spoke, the words bleeding together. “Are you all right? Is there anything we can do to help you right now, anything that might make it better at all?”

Zelda could only watch as Link, rather than meeting Ganondorf’s gaze, looked down at the ground, his left hand coming up to rest on his right elbow, pulling the injured arm closer to his body as he shook his head. “No.” his voice was tiny, barely more than a whisper, and still, they heard every word as clearly as if he had yelled them. “No, it’s… I will manage.”

“You better do.” Ganondorf let out a laugh that could not have sounded more forced if he had tried, too shrill and sudden. “I am not going to allow you to die just because some wolf attacked us. You have already saved us from a wild animal once; I am going to make sure that you will get the chance to do it a third time, even if I will also ensure that you will not have to act alone if that situation ever occurs. ”

Link froze. It lasted for less than a second, and still, Zelda knew that they had all noticed it, Link’s attempt at smiling only serving to emphasise it as he answered without looking at either her or Ganondorf. “I am sure that it won’t.” but for as much as Zelda could hear the attempt at hiding the way his voice shook, it was not enough to completely mask the fear in his eyes as he cast a glance in her direction before adding to the implicit question. “Right? That was it, wasn’t it?”

The honest thing to do would have been to look him in the eye and tell him that she had no way of knowing whether that was the case, that the wolf might have escaped from a zoological garden nearby and that there might be more wolves in the forest, but that was the last thing any of them needed to hear in that moment, so, trying her best to hide her doubt, Zelda nodded. “Of course. I have never heard about there being wolves in this forest, so that was likely the only one.”

It did not take away the tension in Link’s shoulders entirely, but at least his breathing became deeper, less hectic as he bowed his head at her. “Good. I—never mind. Do you think that we will be out of here soon?” gesturing with his left hand, he directed his attention towards what they were all already focused on, the fact that blood was beginning to seep through the bandage. “I don’t want to just let this… well, to just let it stay like this for very long.”

It was a sentiment that Zelda could do nothing but agree with. Trying her best not to look at where the wolf lay as a heap of fur and muscles in a pool of its own blood, she tried her best to find the direction they had been walking in, pointing towards a tree that looked enough like the one she had been about to pass when the wolf had appeared to give her just a tiny bit of confidence that they were not lost. “Gatepost Town should be right on the other side of the forest, a couple of hours away at most. There, we should be able to find something to clean your wounds with.”

“Awesome.” Link’s voice was flat, but he began to walk in the direction she had marked as the right one which was more than what Zelda would have been able to hope for and certainly more than what she was capable of imagining herself doing if she had been in his place, so she did not comment on the way he clutched his arm against his side, just as she tried her best to ignore the slight limp that followed him as he began to move through the clearing.

“Link. Stop.”

They turned around, Zelda having to look over at where Ganondorf had yet to move a centimetre to convince herself that she had not merely imagined that he had said something.

Standing there, still frowning, still looking between Link and the wolf, it was apparent that that was not the case, Ganondorf crossing the distance between them in only a matter of seconds. Pausing in front of Link, an uncertain look flashed in his eyes before he gestured towards his hand. “May I?”

Zelda could tell the moment Link realised what Ganondorf was thinking, the thought dawning on them at the same time. He nodded without uttering a word, letting go of his injured arm to let Ganondorf slowly take his hand, the way he made sure not to make any quick movements revealing how scared he had been only moments ago as he gently turned the hand around.

There was nothing. Wiping a bit of the blood away from Link’s hand with his sleeve, Ganondorf revealed nothing but the bare skin underneath.

“Oh.” the word felt loud as Link let out the little sigh.

“Maybe it just takes a while for it to show up,” Ganondorf suggested, his tone betraying the fact that he did not even believe that himself, “or maybe we are looking at the wrong hand. Here, let me see your left one.”

But the back of Link’s left hand was just as bare as the right one.

“Don’t.” all attempts at once again trying to assure him that the Triforce of Courage would show up in just a moment were brought to a halt as Link made Ganondorf stop before he had got the chance to say anything with a single word. “It is fine. I didn’t really expect for it to show up.”

As Ganondorf looked down at him, a deep crease between his brows, Zelda could hear Link’s words from the night before. It felt as if he would repeat them any moment now, but the seconds passed without him saying anything, Ganondorf’s shoulders lowering in defeat as he looked down at the ground.

“Okay,” Ganondorf said, “I won’t.”

As they all began to move through the forest once again, it was impossible to tell whether Link had wanted for them to try to convince him again. With how he kept on staring down at the ground, his left hand once again coming to rest of his elbow to provide a bit of support, it could have been the case, but him being tired after everything that had happened could just as easily be the answer to the question of what was going through his mind. Zelda could not tell, nor was she willing to risk making everything worse by speaking up, betraying Link’s trust by telling him that the Triforce would appear someday, so she stayed quiet as they continued to venture deeper into the woods.

+++

“Zelda, are you sure that we are going the right way?” Ganondorf’s voice brought an end to hours of silence, putting the doubt that had come to fill every thought in her mind into words.

As she paused, Zelda knew that they were both aware of what the honest answer to that question would be. All they needed to do to know the truth was to look around them and realise that, despite her having assured them that they were only a few hours away from the nearest town, they were nearing the night of the second day of walking around inside the forest, trying to convince themselves that they were not hopelessly lost. It had only barely worked the first time the sun had set, Zelda having heard herself force out a lie and a laugh, saying something about how they would probably have to rest for a moment but that she was sure that once they were fully rested, they would be able to reach Gatepost Town the moment they woke up, and now, with Link’s head lolling from side to side with every step he took, his voice having failed him a long time ago, Link now allowing Ganondorf to let him lean against him for support, looking like the only thing that kept him from falling to the ground was the arm Ganondorf had wrapped around his chest, blood and water dripping from his arm from where they had tried to use their last drops of water to clean the wound, the hope was almost entirely gone.

Still, for as much as Zelda knew that it was hours since she had last had any idea about where they were, fact was that they would no doubt die if they were to stop. Compared to that, the option of wandering around, hoping and praying that they were close to finding their way out of the forest again, was an easy choice to make. Making an attempt at putting on a veneer of cheerfulness that felt sickly sweet as she let it seep into her words, Zelda smiled at him. “Yeah, of course! It should be right this way.”

They continued on that way for another couple of minutes, Zelda feeling the hope grow thinner and thinner between them until it finally snapped.

It happened slowly and yet from one moment to the next, a slight gasp escaping Link making Zelda look back just in time to see his head fall to the side, his entire body going limp.

“Ganondorf!” Zelda yelled the name, but there was no need for it.

Ganondorf had already stopped, catching Link in his fall. As he stood up straight again, this time carrying Link, it was not the same effortless motion as it had been back in Deya Village, and Zelda could both hear and see the fact that they were walking with little food in their stomachs, Ganondorf taking a step forwards before he had regained his balance. But what he did not have when it came to energy, Ganondorf more than made up for with the fear in his eyes as he looked over at her.

“We have to get out of here immediately!”

If she had been able to, Zelda would have loved to turn around to see that the light was beginning to grow in intensity, showing them how they were almost at the edge of the forest, but all she could do was to nod and try her best not to let herself dwell on the way Link’s head lolled to the side, Ganondorf doing his best to readjust his grip on Link so that his arm would keep his head in place as they began to run through the forest.

It was a bad idea, the roots that stuck up from the forest floor being hard to spot and sure to cause them to trip sooner or later, but it was all they could do in that moment, to run forwards and hope that they had enough time to make it out of the forest. Zelda could not even finish the thought, did not dare to begin to envision what might happen to Link if they were to fail. Already, the memory of the last time they had moved like that, how Link had sat next to them in the sidecar of Dorian’s motorcycle, unmoving, with his head resting on Ganondorf’s shoulder as he failed to wake up, whirled through her mind. Back then, he had been placed in Purah’s invention and left there to heal. Zelda could only hope that they would be able to replicate the effect of her machine, finding herself casting a glance at where the sheath was still hanging by Link’s hips, moving along with them as they jumped over fallen logs to make their way out of the woods, and wondering if it would have been better to remove it. After all, Purah had named the Master Sword as the reason for why he was asleep back then, but still, that had been because he had pushed past his limits back at the museum.

The attempt at convincing herself that the same could not have happened now lasted for only a moment. Zelda was not able to lie to herself, not as she looked down at Link, his words about being a coward echoing in her mind. He would undoubtedly have pushed himself beyond his limits to find the strength to shove away the wolf and bring an end to the fight. There was nothing for Zelda to do other than to hope that he had then at least done it to save himself and not her and Ganondorf, that they would reach the end of the forest in time to save him.

She did not receive any answers to her first plea, but the second did not go unnoticed, the forest finally growing lighter around them, the foliage becoming less dense to allow the sun to shine down from above them as Zelda pointed towards what she already knew they had both seen, the end of what had felt like an endless amount of trees only minutes before. “There! We just need to get over there!”

Ganondorf did not answer, only nodding at her for a second before he turned the entirety of his focus towards the goal in front of them, Zelda doing the same at his side. It was cold, but her lungs felt like they were on fire as they finally reached the end of the forest, finding themselves sprinting across the field that separated them from the town in front of them.

With its location, the Great Plateau towering up to their left side, Zelda was sure that they had at last reached Gatepost Town, but even it would turn out that she had been wrong, it did not matter. Rushing into the town, moving past cars and bicycles that had been left in the street, the only thing that counted was the fact that they had to find somewhere to place Link, a spot where they could be certain that he would be safe from harm for a moment.

The rows of houses continued, Zelda’s mind finally clearing enough for her to begin to form a beginning of a plan. They were heading towards the centre of the town. That much, there was no doubt about. It was their usual tactic when picking out a place to stay for the night, to go to where they hoped they would at least not have to come face to face with the private lives of everyone around them and where they would be close to their sources of supplies. They were doing what they would usually have done, but as Zelda looked over at Link and saw how he had gone deathly pale, a thin layer of sweat sticking to his skin, drops already running down his face, taking some of the blood and dirt along with it, she knew that they did not have the time to follow the same plan.

“He is not going to make it!” Zelda yelled the words, and from the way Ganondorf’s shoulders rose up, she knew that he had heard it even if he did not answer. When he refused to stop, she knew that she had to try again, so, mustering up the strength to carry her a few steps in front of him, placing herself so that he could not miss her, Zelda threw out her arm in the direction of the houses next to them. “We have to get him inside now, somewhere where he can lie down and we can make sure that he is warm!”

Ganondorf paused. The moment he looked over at her, eyes wide and scared, his gaze flickering between her and the rest of the world, unable to find anything to hold on to, Zelda could see that he knew that she was right. Still, his voice shook as he turned, staring at the cars in the driveway and the little plastic toys that had been left out on the lawn of the house directly next to them for a heartbeat, before facing her again. “But where?”

That was the question. They had to make a decision and do it quickly, but as she looked around at the houses, they all blurred together into the paralysing fear of opening a door to reveal that a family had been left inside, that much as she had left her father behind and would have to face that if she ever wished to return home, the former residents had been left to die inside their own homes. But she could not allow the fear to overwhelm her, not when Link’s breathing was a shallow wheeze, barely audible above the sound of her heart beating furiously in her chest, so she pushed away the fear and tried to focus, fought with everything she had to not think of anything but how she had to make the right decision in that very moment.

The answer came to her in a flash, Zelda pointing towards the house to her right before she began to sprint towards it, begging for the front door to be unlocked as she gestured for Ganondorf to come along, the wind threatening to steal her voice away as she yelled to make herself heard above it. “Here! It should be safe; there’s no car in the driveway!” Zelda did not wait for a response, reaching the door a second later, already pressing down on the door handle, prepared to kick in the door if that was what it would take as it swung open.

They rushed inside to find themselves in a living room. It was empty, and as Zelda closed the door behind them, the only smell in the house was that of general decay, the smell of a house that had known better days in a time where there had been people to keep it clean, dust sticking to the air as she turned to look back at the living room.

It was pristine, two couches facing each other with a coffee table between them, decorated with a vase and several small trinkets, a rug placed across the armrest of the couch closest to them, folded perfectly in a way that made the room look like something taken from a commercial, bright and breathtaking. The only sign that it had all been left untouched for months, that the owners of the house would not come home any moment now, was the thick layer of dust that covered every last object in the room, from the pictures placed on the mantelpiece to the books in the bookcase, and the wilted flowers in the vase on the coffee table, the petals having fallen onto the table where they had begun to rot.

She stopped, but the rest of the world did not, Ganondorf pushing past her in his rush to get Link over to the couches. Moving slowly, keeping one hand under his head to support his neck, he lowered him down onto the couch, the blood and grime that neither their last bit of water nor the sweat had been able to wash away no doubt dirtying the clean couches, ruining the veneer of everything being perfectly fine for good in the same breath as Ganondorf reached out, dragging the rug from its place across the armrest to let it cover Link.

Tucking in the sides around him, Ganondorf rose again, looking at Zelda from the other side of the couch. “I will go and see if they have anything useful in their kitchen if you go search for any kind of first-aid box. This house looks like there has got to be one somewhere—maybe upstairs.”

Tearing herself away from her silent state of looking down at where a little trickle of blood ran from Link’s arm to seep into the light blue fabric of the couch, Zelda nodded before turning around to head towards where a staircase was barely visible behind a set of half-closed doors. Thankfully, Ganondorf had not waited for her to say anything, having already turned around to head towards where a low wall separated the living room from the adjacent kitchen; he had given her a mission to focus on, so that was what she tried her best to do, shoving away all thoughts about how Link had looked, his skin looking deathly pale against the cold colour of the couch. She could not think about that, not if she wanted to be able to find help for him. Closing her eyes, Zelda tried her best to imagine where she would have put a first-aid box in such a house.

The answer was clear, Zelda looking around her, at the white walls of the little hallway she found herself in as she reached the top of the stairs that matched the walls of her childhood home. It was an instinct, but one she knew was right, that led her down the corridor, searching for the bathroom. That was where they would have put their first-aid box, safely stored away in some cabinet in the bathroom the same way it had been when she had fallen and scraped her knees when she had been seven.

It was a simple enough task, moving down the hallway in search for the right door. Even if she were to open the wrong one, as long as she moved slowly rather than throwing it open, she would only have to catch a glimpse of the rooms on the other side before being able to tell whether she was in the bathroom or not. At least, it should have been simple.

The sight of the little, decorative table that had been pushed up against the wall halfway down the hallway, a chair with legs so thin that it looked like it was just as decorative as the table itself placed next to it, was what made her come to a sudden halt for what felt like the first time in months, unable to look away from the table and the pictures that had been placed on it.

Every single one of them neatly framed, the frames all different and yet complimenting each other, the pictures looked almost like a little story by themselves, Zelda seeing how those placed furthest to the left seemed to be the earliest, one of them showing a girl with deep red hair standing with her arm slung around the waist of another girl, her long hair almost hiding her face from view, barely allowing Zelda to make out the way she beamed up at the first girl.

That kind of pictures continued for a while, Zelda noting how the first girl cut off most of her hair, making it look almost like a little red helmet around her head, while the other’s grew longer, becoming lighter as the pictures showed the change of seasons, the girls slowly losing the last signs of childhood, Zelda estimating that they were somewhere in their early twenties as the theme of the photos changed. It still showed the two of them together, but now, even if Zelda would not already have guessed just when the photos had been taken from the colourful bouquet of flowers that the short-haired girl held with one hand, allowing her to fail to hide a brilliant smile as she and the other girl left the building behind them, flowers in the air around them, the dresses they were wearing, both of them the same shade of white, would have allowed her to guess it as well. The wedding was shown in several pictures, some of them showing people whom Zelda assumed had been their friends, the pictures coming to an end with one last photo of the two women.

They looked older, having perhaps reached their thirties, the woman with dark red hair holding a child as her wife stood with her arms around both of them, all three of them laughing, the picture having no doubt been taken just as it became clear that she would not be able to reach all the way around them.

The world was blurry, but Zelda only had to blink to know that it was not due to the effects of dehydration of malnourishment. Wiping the tears away, she forced herself to continue, not allowing herself to stay there. There was no doubt in her mind that if she did not move in that very moment, she would have found herself unable to do so at all, instead staying there for the rest of her life, staring at the remnants of the lives of those who had disappeared from one day to the next. They were gone. Mourning for them would not change that fact, so she pushed open the first door to her right, thankfully finding herself stumbling into a bathroom.

The tiles were clean, or at least they were until Zelda stamped across them in her quest to get to the vanity cupboard, getting mud everywhere. It was right there across from her, she still felt as if she were a drowning man who had been thrown a lifebuoy as she finally opened up the cupboard door, digging through the contents inside, pushing aside bottles of shampoo and conditioner, spare rolls of toilet paper, and toothbrushes before the red colour of the box that was hidden behind the layers of things that would never find a use told her that she had been correct in her assumption that the first-aid box would be in the bathroom. Of course she had been. The house was so like the one she had grown up in, so like the carefully chosen furniture of her home. The only thing that set it apart from how she had grown up and the life she had been able to imagine for herself back then were the pictures put on display on the table in the hallway.

Zelda moved back outside, having to place her hand against the wall to balance herself. Not trusting herself not to look towards the pictures again, she made sure to close her eyes entirely, almost falling down the stairs in her despair not to be brought face to face with the fact that for as much as the house outwardly looked like her childhood, it was the exact opposite, the kind of home she had never dared herself to hope she would be able to build for herself, barely managing to hold on to the banister in time to keep herself from losing her balance as she finally reached the ground floor.

Ganondorf had yet to return from the kitchen as Zelda knelt down next to the couch, placing the first-aid box on the coffee table, but with the panic she had seen in every last one of his movements, Zelda knew that there was no use in waiting for him to come back in the hope that he would be any closer to having an idea about just what they could do for Link, so she acted quickly, opening up the box.

Immediately, her heart sank down towards a spot near her stomach.

It was almost empty. Save for what looked like analgesics and a bandage, there was nothing in there, but, still, it was better than nothing, so even though it felt hopeless, like she was as close to giving up as she could be without outright doing it, Zelda began to untie the strip of fabric Ganondorf had used in an attempt at reducing the loss of blood to instead replace it with the bandage.

That was how Ganondorf found her as he returned from the kitchen. Sitting down next to her on the floor, he watched her work in silence for a few minutes before speaking. “They have a bit of canned food in their kitchen and a few bottles of water in the fridge. It is probably warm by now, but at least we can use it to clean the wound.”

Zelda fastened the bandage, checking another time to make sure that it was not loose before she looked over at him. “I found next to nothing. They have some pain-killers and this bandage, but that was about it. There were no kinds of antiseptics or anything we could have used to properly clean his wound.”

They fell back into silence for a moment, both of them looking back over at Link. There was no reason to say anything. With the dirt they had not been able to wash away sitting so close to the wound, it would require a miracle for it not to become infected. Looking back up at Link’s face, Zelda could only hope that the fact that he was still unconscious was due to the effects of the sword and not an infection they had failed to notice in time. Logically, part of her must have realised that it was unlikely, that even if there was something wrong with the wound, it would have taken more time for the infection to reach a stage where it would be able to induce the near-comatose state he seemed to be trapped in, but logic meant so very little as they sat there, looking at Link.

It was Ganondorf who was the first of them to move. Rising to his feet, he looked at Link rather than her as he spoke. “We should have done a better job at cleaning it. I…” he shook his head, “I heard the sound of water while we walked through the town—there should be a river nearby. Perhaps we could go and clean the wound there. The water probably won’t be clean, but at least it is there.”

It was a desperate suggestion, and it would have been a lie to say that there was not a moment where Zelda considered it. But then her gaze fell to rest on Link, on the locks of hair that stuck to his forehead, and she could almost see the way he had looked as he had turned from her to stare out of the window back at the hotel. It felt like an eternity had passed since then, but she still knew that she could not agree to the plan, no matter how much she wanted to be able to do something in that moment.

“I don’t think that is a good idea.”

For a moment, the light in Ganondorf’s eyes dimmed, but then it was back, burning bright as he continued to push the issue. “Why not?”

She was a second away from telling him Link’s secret, Zelda barely managing to stop herself in time to instead look down at the rug beneath her. “You said it yourself: the water is most likely just as dirty as the wound is right now.”

“But then what are we going to do? Just let him lie here and wait for him to die?” Ganondorf’s voice broke on the last word, but Zelda still saw how he looked down at her, unflinching and unrelenting in his battle to get a better answer.

It was something she could not give him. For as much as she wanted to tell him everything Link had told her, to jump up and tell him that it was not her fault, that she also had the right to feel lost and desperate as they listened to Link’s laboured breathing, Zelda understood why Ganondorf said what he did, the understanding giving her the strength to meet his gaze as she spoke. “No, of course not. I would never suggest that we should do that.”

Ganondorf visibly deflated, his shoulders sinking, and still, he looked at her, the guilt being clear in his eyes. “I know that. I am sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, but I just… I have no idea what we are supposed to do now.”

“I know you didn’t; there is nothing for you to apologise for. Trust me, I could have said something similar despite knowing that neither of us wanted for this to happen. But we cannot allow for it to come between us, all right?” Zelda waited for a moment, not continuing until she was sure that Ganondorf nodded and that the motion was not just him losing the strength to keep his head upright for another second. “Listen, here is what we are going to do. I know that you were unconscious at the time, but when we arrived in Kakariko Village—”

“I know that Link can use his own energy to be able to reach beyond his own limits,” Ganondorf interrupted her. A second of silence passed, Zelda unable to do anything other than sit there, lacking the ability to think of anything to say or do to make the situation any better as Ganondorf let out a long sigh, “Purah told me as soon as I woke up, as did Dorian when we began our training. And, look, I am sure that that is part of the explanation for why he is lying on this couch now, but look at him, Zelda,” he gestured towards the couch, to Link, to the splodge of red that had already appeared in the middle of the fabric covering the wound, “it cannot explain all of that. He is hurt, and we need to do something about it.”

Looking back down at Link, Zelda was left with no other ways of trying to delude herself into believing that he might be fine. Pale, sweaty, and barely breathing, Link looked far worse than he had done back when their biggest problem had been the fact that he was not awake.

“All right.” Zelda bowed her head, giving in. “Look, what about this plan: we give him the night, and if he has not got better by tomorrow, then I will head out to find something that can help him. There’s got to be a pharmacy in this town. There, I should be able to get medicine for him.”

“But, Zelda—a pharmacy?” the look in Ganondorf’s eyes finished the unsaid question for him.

It was something she had considered as well, but as she looked back over at Link, pale and sick, the sword appearing far too large as he lay there, the sheath digging into the cushions, Zelda knew that it was something she had to do, so she made sure to put up a façade of bravery as she pushed Ganondorf’s concerns aside with a shrug. “I will be fine. Either Link will get better during the night, or I will head out to try to find something to help him heal. There is no other thing we can do.”

Ganondorf did not try to argue with her after that, nor would there have been anything for him to say. As they both looked back down at Link, Zelda knew that she had been right. They really had no other choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And on that note, we will leave the group to try to figure out what to do from here.


	23. Chapter 23

The night passed by in a blur of waking up every half hour, Ganondorf sitting next to Link the first time he whispered her name, a piece of cloth in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

She had barely had time to fall asleep at all, so she was at his side in moments, and although she tried to hide her opinion on what he was doing, the way she looked down at the wet fabric must have shown it anyway, for Ganondorf motioned towards Link’s forehead, whispering despite the fact that he had to be aware that Link would not wake up simply because they were talking next to him. “I just thought that it would be more comfortable for him if we at least tried to wipe away a bit of the sweat.”

She had nothing to say to that, and so, the next couple of minutes passed, Ganondorf pushing away Link’s hair to be able to pat away the blood and sweat on his face, Zelda keeping quiet about the fact that he achieved little more than pushing it all around, instead trying her best to muster up a smile as Ganondorf finally lay down on the floor to sleep, leaving her alone to her watch.

That was how the rest of the night passed, Zelda alternating between almost being able to sleep, being woken up, and keeping watch over Link, all of it only interrupted by hushed conversations about whether or not to pour more bottled water onto the wound or if that had been part of why Link’s health had deteriorated in the first place, if they should try to get him to drink something or if that would only place him in further danger.

Dawn came, Zelda’s head hurting like she had just run headfirst into a wall, and still, Link did not show any signs of being about to wake up.

They both knew what it meant, Ganondorf looking over at her, the fear and pity clear in his eyes, and Zelda could almost hear how, if she just waited for another couple of minutes, he would tell her that she did not have to do it, that, surely, they had not come this far for Link to die there, that he would wake up in a moment and that they could still try his plan of going to clean his wound in the river.

So she did not give him the chance to tell her any of that, not trusting herself to be strong enough to deny the fact that the last thing she wanted to do was to head to the pharmacy and see if there was anyone who had been able to remain conscious for enough time to drag themselves to their last hope of receiving help before dying.

Instead, Zelda only allowed herself to look over at Link, trying to remind herself of why she was walking away from Ganondorf, towards the front door, making sure that she already had her hand on the door handle as she turned around to, with a voice she could hear was close to breaking, try to give him less of a reason to worry. “I am going to be back in a minute, just wait for me here.” after that, there was nothing more for her to say, something Ganondorf thankfully seemed to understand, his only response being a nod, so Zelda pushed open the door, soon finding herself back out in the outside world.

It was a residential neighbourhood, one with cars, gardens, and playgrounds. Turning in the opposite direction of where she could still spot the forest in the distance, Zelda began to make her way towards where she hoped the town centre would be, walking along rows of houses and unkempt hedges as she looked around her, trying to search for anything that could give her an idea about where a pharmacy might be located.

Slowly, her surroundings began to change, the houses and the little roads running along between the different gardens, no doubt leading towards parks further away from the street, disappearing to instead make way for larger buildings, Zelda spotting Gatepost University on her way, the big letters that told her its name having faded already. Still, she stepped up the plaquette next to the entrance, brushed away the dust that had already gathered there to read the inscription. It had been founded centuries ago, enough time having passed since then to have seen it through two civils wars, but now, it had fallen into a state of disrepair, all thanks to a cycle none of them had ever wished to see unleased upon the world.

Turning back around, finding herself sprinting back out towards the street, the tears stung in her eyes as Zelda looked down at the asphalt in front of her. When compared to the centuries the university had been there for, the rest of the world had disappeared in the blink of an eye, the people who lived there alive one moment and dead and the next. What would everyone have said and done if they had known that that was how it would end, if they had had days, weeks, maybe even years to prepare? Closing her eyes, Zelda tried to envision her father telling her that he had decided that, with how little time they had left, there were more important things in their lives than politics, but she could not bring an image of him to appear. Furrowing her brows, she tried again, but all she saw was the blurry portrait of a man who, while having the same characteristics as her father, the same hair and the same eyes, was indistinguishable from everyone else in the rest of the world, his facial features changing every time she tried to make him appear as less than a blur in her mind.

He was gone. The realisation should have hit her sooner, in a place that was not the middle of an unknown city, but that was where she was, her knees hitting the asphalt, the pain that shot up through her legs feeling distant, removed from the rest of her, as Zelda clutched her head in her hands and tried again and again, the picture only fading away even more with each and every attempt.

If she had just been able to cry, then at least she would have been able to use that pain to carry her forwards, but as Zelda rose from the ground again, the only thing she felt was a sense of hollowness, like someone had appeared in front of her to reach into her soul and take away everything. Perhaps that was why she did not cry, why she found herself taking a step forwards and then another, arms swinging at her side as she slowly moved away from the university and into the labyrinthine grid of roads that made up the town centre, all thoughts coming together to focus on the goal that had brought her there.

Zelda had just walked past yet another car that had been left at idling speed when she realised the clues she had failed to notice. The cars. With how many she had already walked past, she should have thought of it already, but as Zelda turned around, careful only to look at the registration plate and nothing but that, it would have been nothing but a lie for her to try to claim that it was not a thought that struck her that very second. People who had been in their cars, they were the ones she would have to follow. After all, Zelda only had to imagine what it must have been like, suddenly feeling ill, the illness reaching a stage where it was difficult to even form coherent sentences in a matter of minutes, to know that the panic would have been overwhelming, the only thought going through someone’s mind being the wish to survive, to get help for family members and friends. They would have been heading towards the pharmacy when the disease had reached its last stage and caused the fatal dehydration, pulling out every last drop of water from within their system.

As soon as she began to know what to look for, the cars where everywhere, the hum of the motors no longer a source of anxiety for her as the hollow space in her chest filled up with something new, a new emotion coming to move along with her as she ran form car to car, pausing for a moment at every last one of them to look for the next. Soon, the cars began to change direction, and in that moment, Zelda knew that she had reached her destination.

The pharmacy was located on the corner of an intersection. The store was as far from eye-catching as it could get, dirty windows showing her an unlit interior being all that met Zelda as she walked towards the spot all the cars seemed to point towards, the outside of it the exact same shade of grey as everything around it. Had it not been for the idea of following the cars, Zelda was sure that she would not have thought to stop to give it a second glance, but now, she pushed against the door, the bell jingling above her as she stepped into the room.

Immediately, the smell of rot filled her nose, overpowering and intense, tears rising up in her eyes as she instinctively pulled at her tunic, covering her nose with the fabric. It did little to protect her from the smell, the sickly sweet scent feeling like it would have been able to move through any barrier she might have thought to put between herself and the source of it, and for a heartbeat, Zelda was about to turn on her heel and flee the store to instead run as far away as her legs could take her to try to cough up every last second she had spent submerged in the smell. But she could not do that. She might have lost her father, she might have lost the entire world, but there were still people out there who were counting on her, people she had not lost yet, and where the memory of her father was already starting to fade away, Zelda could still picture how Link had lain on the couch, looking like he was hours away from death, how Ganondorf had held his hand, seemingly thinking that she was not able to see them as she closed the door.

It should have stopped there, but the memories kept on coming, Paya as she had smiled at her, the two of them having fallen asleep together, Zelda finally being able to fully rest, Impa as she had told her that she would have to go to the Temple of Time, giving them a reason to continue the fight to stay alive, Dorian when he had told them the story of his wife and let them know to fight to protect rather than to destroy, Purah and her enthusiastic attempts at explaining the idea behind her inventions, seemingly without much regard for the fact that they understood only a fraction of what she was saying. The memories continued to flash in front of her eyes, and while the smell had not grown any less horrid, Zelda found herself going against the voice in her head that screamed at her to go back, to tell Ganondorf that she had not been able to find the pharmacy and then hope for the best, as she ventured deeper into the store.

It felt like she had walked kilometres when she finally reached the shelves, the first thing she noted being how most of the products lay as dust on the floor, every step being followed by the crunch of glass breaking beneath her feet as she looked down at all that was left of the bottles of medicine, the floor having become sticky with the residue of what had not been able to evaporate.

Only a couple of months ago, giving up would have been her first reaction to seeing the damage around her, and there was a brief moment where Zelda found herself looking down at where a large red splotch on the ground told of the destruction of what had no doubt been medicine made to aid the body’s own immune defence and almost considered the thought before pushing it away to look again.

She was rewarded for having been able to find that last bit of hope with the sight of a bottle. It had been pushed all the way back towards the wall, invisible to anyone who would happen to pass by unless they were to lean their forehead against the shelf above them. Zelda had little doubts about that being what had saved it from falling victim to everyone’s last desperate attempt at saving themselves and others.

Skimming through the description on the side of it, all Zelda cared about were the words ‘healing’ and ‘hearty’ as she pocketed it to turn around and head back towards the house they had claimed as their own.

The town was still deserted, the three of them being the only ones still left alive within it. She still had no way of knowing whether or not Paya and the rest of the inhabitants of Kakariko Village had survived the attack. There were so many things that she still did not know about and so many questions she still lacked the answers to, but as Zelda walked out of the door and down the street, it was with a bounce in her step that she could not recall having noticed before.

+++

Zelda opened the door to a silent house. Where she had left it to the sound of faint breathing from Link and the sound of Ganondorf trying his best not to move around too much and failing at it, as Zelda pushed open the door to find silence on the other side, the first thought to strike her was that the worst had happened, that Link had died and Ganondorf had gone outside to mourn. Taking a deep breath, Zelda could already feel her heart beating away in her chest. Panic would not help her, not when she had to calm down and think things through. For as bad as Link had looked when she had left him, she had to believe that she would have felt it if he had died, that, much like Ganondorf had not argued when he had been told that his aunts were gone because he had already known that he was lying to himself by pretending otherwise, she would have known if Link had died.

With her heart slowly approaching a heartrate that, while still quick, was slightly less hectic than before, Zelda took another step into the house. At least there were fresh splotches of blood and mud on the couch. It was not an observation Zelda had ever thought would make her feel any better, and yet, there she was, smiling down at the stained couch. It meant that they were still there. No matter what, they would still be there.

Moving across the room, Zelda held on to the back of the couch as she looked around for a moment before breaking through the silence. “Hello? Ganondorf? Are you there?”

The sound of movements echoed from above her head, Ganondorf soon stepping into the room through the doors leading towards the corridor and the staircase. Placing a finger in front of his lips, he nodded his head at her, whispering as he walked over to lead her towards the door he had just stepped through. “Yeah, I am sorry about not having been down here to tell you, but…” his breath hitched, the sound of someone trying their best not to cry colouring every little sound as he continued, “Link got worse while you were away, shaking and freezing. It got to a point where I could barely keep him from rolling off the couch, so I moved him upstairs. There’s—um, the bed up there was far wider than the couch and had blankets lying at the footboard, so it felt like the better choice to put him up there.”

There was really nothing she could do in response to that other than to fall silent as they moved up the stairs. The pictures on the table almost seemed to call out for her as they made their way past them, reminding them of the fact that they were not in their own house but rather taking refuge in the house of a family who had been under the impression that they would be home in a couple of hours when they had left it that day. Zelda could not imagine a reality where Ganondorf would not have noticed them while moving Link upstairs. The pictures were simply too noticeable for that to have happened, so even if he would have had to hurry past them to get Link to a spot where he would not constantly be a second away from falling to the floor, he was bound to have seen it and realise that they were walking around in a home someone else had created for themselves.

However, as Ganondorf led her down the hallway, opening the last door to the left, Zelda could not fully bring herself to feel guilty for it. It was not like the family would have come home if they had refrained from entering their house. Nothing they could have done would have been enough to change what had happened, and as Zelda found herself turning her head, barely able to catch one last glimpse of the first of the pictures on display, the beaming smiles making the hallway seem lighter as she left it to step into the room, Ganondorf holding the door open behind her, she had to believe that they would have allowed them to be there if they still had a way to express an opinion. There was nothing to be gained from feeling guilty about doing everything in her power to keep them safe, and so, Zelda tore her attention away from the corridor, instead turning her focus towards the bed in front of her and the person lying on it.

Ganondorf had not lied or exaggerated the truth when he had told her that Link was getting worse. If anything, really, he had understated just how bad it had got, Zelda finding herself standing next to a Link who looked like a pale shadow of the person he had been only days ago, sweaty and pale as he lay on top of the bloodstained sheets, a small mountain of blankets piled up on top of him. From the creases in the fabric, it was clear that Ganondorf must have attempted to tuck them in around him in an attempt at keeping him warm, only for the convulsions that ran through Link’s body to have negated the attempt at making him just that tiny bit more comfortable. Glancing towards the footboard of the bed, Zelda saw that Ganondorf had at least removed both the sword and the sheath before he had tried to place the blankets around him, both of them having been almost pushed to the floor, undoubtedly placed there as the result of Link’s panicked movements.

It was a childish thought, but looking over at the sword, making certain that Ganondorf would not notice her, Zelda tried one last time to reach out, to search for any other presence in the room. It was impossible to say whether she succeeded or if it was merely wishful thinking, but as she stared down at the sword, Zelda could almost convince herself that she could feel the same sense of warmth radiating off of it that she felt while trying to reach out for her own powers. Only, here, she could feel it against her fingertips as she used the cover of Ganondorf being too preoccupied with Link to reach out to place a hand on the hilt, feeling how the sword responded to her, almost like a friend she had failed to remember for the longest time. Whispering so softly that she was unable to determine whether she was saying anything or if the words only existed within her own mind, Zelda looked down at the sword. “I am begging you, let Link live. He… he has spent too much of his own energy to wield you, and I beg you, do not let that be his death, not after he sacrificed it all to save us. Please.”

There was no response, not for the first handful of seconds after she finished the plea with one last attempt at convincing the presence in the sword to help them at least, but before she was able to try again, to once again reach out and wait for a response, the sound of Link grunting in pain tore her gaze away from the sword and back towards where Link lay below his pile of blankets. As Zelda watched, he raised his hand, the motion seeming too quick for him as he mumbled something before placing his hand directly in front of his face, his entire arm going limp a second later, his hand hitting his face before lying still on the pillow. Link did not show any reaction to it, doing nothing to suggest that he was aware of what was happening or that he felt any pain.

“How…” Zelda had to swallow the urge to cry, reminding herself that now, at least they had a chance of being able to save him, “how long has this been going on for?”

Walking over to stand on the opposite side of the bed, Ganondorf placed both hands on the very edge of the mattress, looking down at Link as he answered the question. “It began shortly after you left, so… about a couple of hours roughly. But it has got gradually worse since then.”

That made the decision for her. She might not know exactly what the medicine in her pocket was meant for, but if it was a case of either accepting the risk of it worsening Link’s already fragile state or waiting for whatever infection or disease had taken hold of him to become even worse, Zelda was willing to risk having made the wrong choice by grabbing the bottle.

The gasp Ganondorf let out as she pulled out the little vial, careful to remove the stopper without spilling a single drop of the mixture, was little more than background noise as Zelda held the bottle close to her for another moment before taking a deep breath, kneeling down next to the bed to get herself to the level of Link’s face. Perhaps he was distantly aware of the presence of other people, or maybe the little gesture he made, his hand jerking for a moment, was a simple coincidence. Zelda could not tell which explanation was correct, but as she leant in over him, maintaining a tight grip on the bottle, she made sure to keep an eye out for any sudden movements that could have smacked the bottle out of her grasp as she pressed it against his lips and tilted it slightly, letting the red liquid run down his throat

For a moment, it seemed like that was all that would happen, that it would yield the same results as the attempts at getting him to drink, the liquid running down his cheek to stain the surface he was lying on, but as she forced herself to slowly count to five, waiting for just another second after she would have given up and pulled the bottle away in the hope that they could then at least save a few drops, should he become conscious for a moment, Zelda could hear the sound of his breaths growing deeper. The medicine did not run down his cheeks, did not stain the pillow to show that it had been wasted, and though he did not open his eyes, the shivers became less violent, a bit of the colour returning to his cheeks as Zelda finally leant away from him again.

Putting the stopper back into the emptied vial, Zelda looked up at Ganondorf. “I think it worked. Now, it is simply a matter of waiting. Waiting and hoping for the best.”

He did not do anything to respond, the only sign that he had heard her at all being the way his lower lip quivered, a muscle twitching near the side of his face as he sat down next to the bed. Aware of the fact that there was nothing else for her to do to help, Zelda did the same, the sound of someone talking to her, the words drowned out as if they were both submerged in water, filling her ears as she looked back up at Link.

+++

The second night in the house began with the same blur of being half asleep only to be shook awake every other hour to stand guard next to Link’s bed.

Ganondorf must have spent his first watch gathering supplies from the kitchen, for Zelda woke up to no less than a little stack of cans on the bedside table and a couple of bottles of water on the floor, almost managing to trip over them before Ganondorf was able to grab onto her arm to give her a whispered explanation of how Link had opened his eyes for half a second during his watch, his eyelids fluttering for a moment before he fell back against the pillows again. Looking down at all the food Ganondorf had seemingly decided to bring up in response to the sign of Link possibly being about to wake up again, although she was aware of the fact that it was unlikely that Link would be able to eat any of it just yet, Zelda could not blame Ganondorf for his response to there finally being just a glimpse of hope that he would make it. After all, as she looked down at a can of tinned sweetcorn, already open and with a spoon having been stuck into it, she knew that she would have done the same, that she too would have done everything in her power to prepare for the moment where Link might be conscious for long enough to allow them to get him to eat anything.

Still, for all Ganondorf’s preparation for his awakening, Zelda’s watch passed by, Link remaining fast asleep as she sat on the chair they had placed by his bedside, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. It was slower than the sound of Ganondorf’s breathing, but not by a lot, nowhere near the way his breathing had been barely audible only a few hours ago, so she allowed herself to let the hope rise up in her chest as the minutes passed, the time for her to wake up Ganondorf again finally arriving.

The next time Zelda woke up, it was morning. Rubbing against her eyes, it took a moment for her to realise that she had not been woken up by the sound of Ganondorf whispering her name as he tried to shake her awake, but by the light coming in through the window. Sitting up on the floor, the question of why he had not woken her up for her watch was already on her tongue as Zelda looked back over her shoulder, every last word in her mind to falling away in an instant.

Link was awake. Not only that, he was even sitting up in his bed, looking better than he had done for weeks, a healthy colour having returned to his cheeks as he let out a laugh at something Ganondorf must have said only seconds ago. Though he sat with pillows placed between him and the headboard, there was nothing about the way he moved his arms around as he said something she could not bring herself to focus on, full of energy and strength, that would indicate that there was any need for them to worry about him. Instead, it looked more like the pillows had been placed there for Ganondorf’s sake, Zelda catching him sending the pillows a worried glance whenever Link would look away from him for a moment, his hand hovering just above Link’s shoulder, ready in case Link would lose consciousness again. It felt like it was inevitable, but as Zelda sat there, frozen in place, the seconds continued to pass without Link showing any signs of being about to go back to the state he had been in only the day before. If anything, it looked like he got even more energy as time continued to pass, his voice becoming firmer, his laugh a little louder.

She must have been sitting like that, looking up at them without saying a word, for minutes when Link turned his head to the side, his eyes widening as he looked down at her. “Zelda!” he said her name, his eyes shining with delight. “It is good to see you up. I was actually just waiting for you to wake up, but Ganondorf told me that it would be better to let you sleep for a little longer.” lightly elbowing Ganondorf in the side, Link blinked at her.

It required every last bit of effort not to let the surprise at not only seeing him up but also seeing him look like the last couple of days had been nothing but a bad dream overwhelm her, and even then, Zelda could hear how her answer came a little too late to hide it completely. “I guess I could say the same thing to you.” shaking her head, she caught a glimpse of how the stack of cans on Link’s bedside table had been moved away, the only thing still left there being the opened can of sweetcorn. “Are you… are you doing okay?”

“Yeah!” the answer came without hesitation. “I am doing really great! I was actually just trying to tell Ganondorf that I think I am doing well enough for us to leave in a couple of hours.”

“Just as I was trying to explain to Link here that, no matter what he says to argue against it, it would be better to give him another day to rest and recover his strength before we begin to head out towards the Great Plateau.” with how Ganondorf almost interrupted Link’s attempt at convincing her that he really was all right, that it was not just a dream she would wake up from in a moment, it was clear that it was a discussion that had been going on for quite a while already, both Ganondorf and Link looking over at her, expectant looks on their faces.

They were waiting for her to make a decision, Zelda realised. She would be the deciding vote, and for once, it was not difficult to decide which of the options seemed like the better one to pick, so, trying her best to mirror their cheerfulness, she shook her head at Link. “I’m sorry, Link, but I am with Ganondorf on this one. It would be best for us to be completely sure that you really are doing as great as it seems that you are right now before we begin to make our way up to the Great Plateau.”

“But aren’t we in a hurry?” Link argued, but with how he leant back against the headboard, it was apparent that he had already admitted defeat.

Ganondorf answered the question for her, reaching out to pull the blankets that lay in a heap on top of Link’s stomach up to his chin. “We are, and that is exactly why you should be going back to sleep now. The faster we can be sure that you are not going to pass out on our way to the Temple of Time, the faster we can get there.”

It looked almost like Link was going to say something, perhaps wanting to tell them that they could also get to the Temple of Time faster by leaving immediately, but as Ganondorf rose from his chair, pushing it against the wall as he tucked in the blankets, Link instead nodded at them, barely trying to hide the yawn as he closed his eyes. A second later, his breathing became soft, more even, letting them know that he was already fast asleep.

Looking over at her from across the bed, Ganondorf gestured for Zelda to come out into the hallway with him, the way a little of the joy in his eyes already dimmed letting her know just what he was going to tell her. Pushing down the instinctive urge to flee from bad news, Zelda pushed herself up from the floor and followed along after him as he held open the door for her.

He did not say anything immediately, instead taking his time with making sure that the door was closed, that, no matter what, nothing they said would be able to disturb Link’s sleep. With how it took several seconds for him to look back over at her, perhaps Zelda should not have found herself caught off guard by the worried lines that ran along his forehead as he looked down at her, and yet, that was exactly what she did, the surprise leaving her barely able to keep herself from taking a step backwards in response.

Letting out a sigh, Ganondorf went straight to the point. “Zelda, we—we do have time to let him rest for a moment, don’t we? We have the time to let him sleep for another night in this house, right?”

It was a plea for her to say yes, to take away the worries of them possibly dooming the world by not being willing to have Link die on the way to the Temple of Time, and as they stood there in the dark hallway, only a few steps away from the pictures of a kind of existence she could perhaps have built for herself if their lives had been different, Zelda wanted to be able to say yes, to grant him the peace of mind he wanted. It would have been a lie, however. That fact, Zelda could not ignore, no matter how much she wanted to.

Trying her best to keep her voice down to not risk waking up Link and make him resume the discussion again, Zelda made sure to look at a point directly next to Ganondorf’s face, not trusting herself not to give in and lie if she were to look directly at him. “I… I don’t know, or at least I have no way of knowing anything for sure. Maybe we have enough time. I sure hope that we do, but there is always that risk that the next moment will be the one to change everything. I cannot tell you that I am absolutely certain we are not making a mistake, but we have to let Link sleep, don’t we?”

Much like she could not make herself look directly up at him, Ganondorf also looked at a point behind her as he shrugged, the gesture that had so clearly been meant as a way to casually show that he was not worried looking tense and strained. “Yeah, we have to. I just keep on wondering what will happen next.” her failing to respond must have been enough for Ganondorf to realise that she was not sure just what he was trying to tell her, for he continued. “I mean, the first time we saw the cycle manifest in our time, everyone died, and if we—if we don’t fall back into the cycle, who is to say what will happen next? Everyone has already died, so what will happen next? How can it be even worse than it already is?”

Zelda made sure to remain quiet about her own theories, Purah’s theory of the world being like a container that was about to burst burning in her chest as she forced herself not to share it with him. For her to tell him about how the person she had spent most of her childhood looking up to in school was convinced that something even worse would happen if they did not figure out how to bring an end to the source of their problems was the last thing he needed in that moment, so, careful to keep her voice even, Zelda looked over at him. “I don’t know. We just have to hope that it will not come to that before we are able to reach the Temple of Time.”

That should have been the end of the conversation, their cue to go back inside the bedroom to curl up on the ground or perhaps search for another bed to finally get a proper night of sleep, but as they stood there, neither Ganondorf nor Zelda moving a centimetre, it was clear that it would not be so easy to dispel the fear that they might have gone through all those weeks of journeying across the country, losing everyone just as they were able to believe that they might have found another community, fleeing for their lives to reach the Temple of Time before the Yiga Clan would be able to catch up with them once again, for it to mean nothing at all in the end. As Ganondorf failed to stifle a sob, Zelda knew that she had to say something, had to reach out and at least make an attempt at offering him some comforting words, but she had no idea about what they could be, unable to do anything other than stand there and watch as he tried and failed to wipe the tears away.

“There is actually something else I have wanted to talk with you about for a while. Something other than the cycle and our destiny—or, well, I guess it is connected in a way.” Ganondorf’s voice was thin, but she still heard every word as he forced a deep breath into his lungs. “It is about Riju. I know that it is my own fault and that I was the one who told Link to leave the rucksack behind, but lately, I can’t remember… I can’t remember what she looked like anymore. I can see her hair, and I know what her eye colour was like, that she looked a bit like me when I was much younger, but I just… I _can’t_ see her anymore. I can’t see her, and I know that I have lost her already, but it feels like it is happening all over again.”

He broke down, his knees buckling below him. Zelda barely had time to rush to his side, lowering him down to the floor as they gave way from below him. Sitting there, with their backs against the wall, Link asleep just a couple of metres away, Zelda could almost have been able to fool herself into thinking that it was how it had been supposed to be from the beginning, but as Ganondorf continued to cry at her side, pressing his hands against his mouth to soften the sounds, no doubt to keep them from accidentally waking up Link, the façade she might otherwise have been able to build around herself fell away, leaving Zelda to look at the door across the hall and see where a few bumps in the wall spoke of a child having lived in the house in the past.

“I can’t remember them either.” Zelda did not turn to see if Ganondorf was looking at her, instead using her momentum to continue. “I don’t know how long it has been that way for, but I noticed it while I was out to find the medicine for Link. When I try to remember my father, I can’t see his face anymore. I can remember my childhood and how Urbosa would come to visit from time to time, bringing along stories about her work and her friends and things she had read in the newspapers, just like I can remember going to school and fleeing to the library, but I cannot recall his face as more than a blur of individual features I remembered him for.”

She had no way of knowing what thoughts were going through Ganondorf’s mind, so Zelda did not even make an attempt at guessing them. Instead, she kept her gaze fixed on the little bump directly in front of her. It was located at a point that would most likely be at about the level of her knees if she were to stand up, perhaps the result of the child having bumped into the wall with some kind of plastic toy in their hand. Recalling the pictures on the table next to them, Zelda could only imagine what might have happened, whether their mothers would have picked them up and made sure that they were all right before reminding them to be more careful with a smile, or if they had simply stopped after instructing them to be more alert. Somehow, she was certain that the first possibility would have been what had happened.

“Zelda?” Ganondorf spoke slowly, sounding like he did not want to consider it for even a moment. “Do you think that our memories becoming fuzzy might be a sign that our destinies are taking hold of us?”

Raising a brow, Zelda finally looked back over at him, almost finding herself overwhelmed by the fear that was hidden right behind his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well, for the cycle to have been able to repeat time after time over the millennia, it would have to mean that it has the power to influence those chosen by the goddesses to become the people it needs them to be for it to be able to take away their own dreams and wishes to turn them into the princess, the hero, and…” he sent her a humourless smile, “me. Don’t you think that this, our memories fading away, could be a sign that it is beginning to happen to us, that the cycle is erasing our own selves to make it so that we will act according to the way it is meant to play out?”

Zelda could not reject the idea outright. No matter how much she wanted to assure him that they would be all right, as Zelda looked at him and saw the way his gaze was becoming more and more unsteady, flickering from different points around her face to the next, there was a little part of her that latched on to the idea, clinging to it as it attempted to drag her back down with it.

Still, it was something she could not allow to happen, so, shaking her head with more conviction that what she should have been able to muster up, Zelda tried her best to brush the concern aside. “I am sure that it is just the result of time passing. To me, it doesn’t seem like you have changed, not with how you kept on insisting that Link would have to rest and recover before we would set out for the Great Plateau. I promise you that the King of Evil from the legends I grew up with would never have done that. He would have been all too happy to know that his opponents were in a weakened state when he would have to fight them.” Zelda added a little chuckle on to the end of sentence, but it was not returned, Ganondorf still sitting there, the same grim expression on his face as she changed tactics. “Besides, if you really were beginning to turn into the bad guy from the legends, it would mean that Link and I were about to become the heroes of the story, right?” waiting for a moment, it became clear that the tiny throw of the head Ganondorf did in her direction was the best answer she could hope for. “I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t feel very much like a hero right now, and I am sure that Link would say the same. I promise you, Ganondorf, you are not becoming a bad person, not now and not ever. You are the same person you have always been, the one who has saved my life and Link’s as well more times than I can count.” when he still did not respond, merely turning his head away from her, Zelda reached out to grab his hands, holding them tightly as she leant closer towards him. “You are not beginning to change into the person you fear you are, and I won’t ever let that happen to you.”

Finally, he met her gaze, but where she had hoped to see the fear disappearing to instead make way for a smile, Zelda saw only a tiny dot of light in the middle of the darkness as he looked away from her once again, looking down at their hands rather than her as he mumbled a response under his breath. “You are a hero, Zelda. You and Link both are.”

Giving him another moment to add himself to that list, Zelda shook her head. “We all are.”

At least Ganondorf did not outright deny it, but there was still little hope to be found in his expression as he stood up, helping her up from the floor as well before turning away from her, his shoulders rising up towards his ears. Zelda could not tell whether he was looking towards the room Link was sleeping in or if he too was looking at the wall, searching for the little clues about who the family that had lived there had been, but she heard his voice as clearly as if he had still been looking at her. “We need to get to the Temple of Time as soon as we can once Link is able to make that journey. I… I know that you are going to say that everything is all right, but I don’t want to give the cycle a second more to try to take hold of us than what is absolutely necessary.” reaching down to cover the back of his right hand with his left, Ganondorf could hardly have made it more obvious where his thoughts were, but Zelda still followed the motion, barely managing to catch a glimpse of the mark on the back of his hand.

With her phone having been lost alongside Ganondorf’s and Link’s it had not been possible to take a photo of the mark when it had first showed up, but Zelda did not need any reminder of what it had looked like back then to know that it had grown even more prominent now, the upper triangle being almost completely white, having lost the appearance of it perhaps being a scar and nothing more than that. Time was running out, that much was evident, from the scar on the back of his hand, to the way the world around them felt like it was preparing itself to fall apart completely, but Zelda had to believe that Ganondorf was wrong about himself and the cycle.

With a shaking voice, Zelda forced herself not to reach out towards him, not to do anything that might possibly have made him feel even worse, simply stating what felt obvious to her instead. “I agree. Unless Link gets worse during the night, we will set out tomorrow morning and then…” she shook her head, hearing how her voice trembled despite her best efforts to keep it from doing just that, “then we will just have to hope that we can find the answers we have been looking for on the way to the temple.”

“We will.”

Ganondorf had perhaps meant the words to sound assuring, to let her know that no matter what might lie ahead, they would figure out the truth behind the cycle and how they had come to be bound to it, but as they stood there, Zelda could not have missed how his voice betrayed him. Neither of them had any idea about what they were doing. Ganondorf was still the only one among them to carry the mark of the Triforce on his hand, and although the voices of the spirit realm no longer felt as distant as they had done only a week ago, Zelda could still sense how the final barrier towered up in front of her, keeping her from being able to fully reach out to embrace them. There were still so many things they had yet to figure out, how they would ever be able to bring an end to the cycle being only one of them, but as the pressure built up around them, it was clear that there was nothing to do other than to head to the Temple of Time and pray that they would find the answers they were looking for there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, they might finally be ready to make their way to the Temple of Time!


	24. Chapter 24

Saying goodbye to the house that had been their sanctuary for the past three days was harder than Zelda would have liked to admit, but at least she was not alone in having to wipe away the tears as they left the unopened cans and bottles of water behind, carefully closing the door behind them as they went back outside to begin the last stretch of the journey. There was no use in bringing anything along with them. The entrance to the Great Plateau was only a couple of kilometres away from the town, the staircase that had been built into the escarpment visible from the moment they left Gatepost Town behind for good. Other than Link’s sword, there was nothing for them to take with them.

They walked in silence, Zelda feeling how the mood gradually worsened the closer they got to the staircase. Speaking up, trying to put her feelings into words and get them to do the same, that was what she should have done, but as they began to ascend the stairs, Zelda had no words left to share with them, all thoughts inevitably returning to the same question of what would happen next.

The stones that had been placed to keep the structure from caving in on itself and to keep the dirt around them from coming loose when it rained were cold beneath her fingertips as she ran a hand over them, looking at the pictures that had been carved into them. They were all depictions of the different incarnations of the hero, one of them raising his sword skyward, another one about to draw it from a pedestal. A glance towards where Link was walking a couple of steps behind her let her know that where the heroes of old had all been depicted in moments of glory, their victorious expressions not showing any sign of fear or doubt about their place in the legends, Link’s shoulders were sagging, his gaze turned down towards the step directly in front of him even though she had seen enough to know that he did not need to watch where he was going. As much as trying to pin the blame for his disheartened expression on the disease that had kept him in bed for those last few days would have taken away some of the worry that sat as a stone in the pit of her stomach, Zelda knew that it would have been a lie. She only had to look at how Ganondorf was walking next to him, looking just as fearful as Link, to know that.

There was nothing about the situation she could blame on the wolf, nothing she could blame on the Yiga Clan or the fact that they could not be sure that they would not attack them on their way to the temple. Instead, Zelda looked down at Ganondorf and Link and knew that they were scared for the same reasons as her, all of them at once eager to reach the Temple of Time to at least know that they had done something, that they had obeyed the last order Impa had given them, and afraid that they would arrive there to find that they still did not have any idea about what they could do to bring an end to the cycle and keep the world intact.

Zelda’s steps were heavy as she reached the end of the stairs but she reached the top despite her fears, turning around to look at how Hyrule lay as an expanse of green and orange below her, Ganondorf and Link soon coming to join her.

For a moment, they all stood there, silently looking at the scenery below them.

Autumn was coming, the trees of the Forest of Time already having lost most of their vividly green colour, the forest seeming a lot less dense now than when they had made their way through it, just as the grass of Hyrule Field was beginning let go of the green colour that had met Zelda’s eyes when she had first left Hyrule Castle Town behind for good. The city was barely visible in the distance, and Zelda had to squint to make out the faint outline of the skyscrapers that had surrounded her for most of her life, Hyrule Castle rising up towards the sky behind it. It was all so far away as they stood there, a solid rail of stones having been put in place to keep anyone from falling off the Great Plateau. It had no doubt been built with children in mind, to allow parent to bring their children to the birthplace of Hyrule without fearing that an adventurous child could injure themselves, but standing there, it felt more like it had been built specifically to keep them from being able to return to their old lives.

“So…” Link said, bringing an end to the silence to look over at them, Zelda finding herself copying the gesture without thinking, all three of them soon facing each other rather than the expanse of land below, “we should probably get going now.”

They should get going. In fact, there was not a moment to waste, not with how it had already taken far too much time for them to even get to the Great Plateau in the first place, but Zelda still had to hold back her first reaction of wanting to ask for just a moment more, just another minute for her to spend there, looking out at Hyrule below them, before she was able to nod. “We should.”

Zelda leading the way across the paved area surrounding the entrance to the Great Plateau, faded stalls lining the place, they soon left the very centre of the tourist site behind, walking along a dirt road for long enough for Zelda to know that both Ganondorf and Link were moments away from asking her if they were going the right way, if the path to the Temple of Time would not be littered with signs to let tourists know where to go. But then, walking over a hill, the sound of twin gasps coming from behind her was enough to remove all doubts from their minds, Zelda having to stop for a moment to simply take in the way the temple rose up in front of them.

Growing up in Hyrule Castle Town, she had grown up around skyscrapers, had been used to the idea of being several floors off the ground. Really, looking up and seeing how the tower of the temple was barely taller than the library she had spent so much of her spare time in as a child, should not have been as overwhelming as it was, and yet, Zelda found herself letting out a sigh of both disbelief and amazement.

It was a grand building, that was the only way she knew to describe how the temple stood there, the elevation of both the hill it had been built on as well as the Great Plateau itself allowing it to rise up above its surroundings, a maze of stairs and smaller rooms meant for prayers leading up to the main structure itself. The doors were several times taller than her and had thankfully been left open, looking almost like they had been placed there specifically to welcome them as they slowly began to make their up towards the temple, Zelda only allowing herself a moment to glance at the surrounding area, peeking into the little rooms that preceded the temple itself.

“Whoa.” walking directly up to the walls of the temple as the first of them, Ganondorf placed his hand flat against the stones, slowly brushing over the surface, pulling away a bit of ivy that had begun to climb up the walls. “That’s… that’s really something. And you were here with you school?”

“Yes.” looking back to make sure that Link was still right there behind her, Zelda came over to join him. “We went here during our school camp. I think it was either my history teacher or my Hylian teacher who had organised for us to spend a day out here. There was a guide and everything, telling us about how this structure is one of the oldest in Hyrule.”

“The oldest in Hyrule?” Ganondorf chorused, leaning back against the stones just as Link finally reached them. “Impressive that it is still standing then. Do you think that it might be old enough for it to have been there during the last cycle?”

Zelda was not sure why, but as he said it, she caught both him, herself, and Link send the courtyard they had just walked through wistful looks, a feeling of having lost something, something that had once been important to her but that she could no longer remember what was, stealing her voice away, making her have to clear her throat before she was able to say anything in response to the question. “I hope so. If not, I don’t have any idea about what we are going to do next. But come on, we should probably head inside and… try to look for anything that might have been left behind from the last time the cycle struck.”

They followed her inside the temple without a word.

If the outside had been breathtaking, the only thing Zelda could do as she found herself inside the Temple of Time was to stare. Above her, the vaulted ceiling seemed so far away from her that it might as well have reached up towards the sky, the tall windows that lined the walls making the interior of the temple as bright as the day outside, but what truly called for her full attention, what made her stop in her tracks, distantly noting how Ganondorf and Link did the same next to her, was the statue of Hylia. It did not quite reach the ceiling, but it was close to achieving that feat, large and imposing as it stood there, the goddess depicted with a serene smile, her wings folded behind her back as if she had just landed there to allow for the temple to be built around her, greeting the visitors with a smile from her spot up on the raised platform that filled the far end of the room, a handful of steps leading up to it. A sky must have been blocking the sun, for as they watched, the light coming in through the windows around the statue grew in intensity, bathing it in multi-coloured light as the glass refracted the light, casting a rainbow across the goddess’ stony face.

It did not dawn on her that she had moved, instinctively drawn towards the statue, before she had already taken a stumbling step forward, unable to look anywhere but at how the light fell on the goddess’ face. The statue was the same grey shade of stone no matter where she would have looked, but as the light moved slightly, the rainbow shifting, moving across her face as a kaleidoscope, Zelda would not have hesitated to believe that it was all real, that it really was Hylia up there, that the goddess had decided to stand still for centuries to provide the temple with the feeling of warmth and having someone to look out for them.

It was an illusion—a comforting illusion, but an illusion nonetheless. The fact that she could hear the whispers of the spirit world was proof of that, so Zelda tore her gaze away from the goddess, looking back towards Ganondorf and Link, only to see that they must have interpreted her walking further into the room as her having had the foresight to begin the search for any clue as to what they would have to do immediately upon entering the temple, the two of them having gone to each of the corners closest to the door, Link lifting up pots and looking behind the benches that had been left by the wall in his search for anything to show them the way, Ganondorf inspecting the walls.

Quickly walking over to the nearest surface, knowing that her cheeks were burning, she hurried to try to cover up the fact that she had not thought so far ahead, realising too late that she had walked right over to the raised part of the flooring. Once there, there was no way back, not unless she wanted to risk Ganondorf and Link noting the fact that she had been distracted, so Zelda knelt down and began to push ivy and leaves away from the little strip of carved scenes that ran along the side of the banister marking the difference between the platform and the rest of the room.

If there was anything for her there to find, Zelda was not sure just what it was supposed to be. Running her hands over the carved lines to help her connect the places where the lines had faded with age, all she could see in the carvings was the same retelling of the ancient legends as the one she had heard her whole life, one scene that depicted the hero with his sword raised above his head fading into the next, the sunbeams that were emitted from the very tip of the Master Sword having been interpreted as parallel lines spanning the width of the rectangular frame around the carving, picture after picture showing the hero with his sword raised, the hero kneeling in front of a pedestal, the sword resting in it, the hero with his back turned towards the crystal the first princess of Hyrule had been said to have slept in for centuries. There was a never-ending line of the hero’s deeds, all of his victories laid out in front of her, but nothing that could bring her closer to figuring out what she was meant to do or what her role in all of it would be.

Looking over her shoulder to make sure that the two others were too busy with making their way through the temple, Ganondorf somehow finding the energy to send her a little smile as he moved past the spot she was busy inspecting to instead walk up the stairs to reach the upper level, Zelda turned her gaze upwards, finding herself looking up at the serene expression of the goddess above her. Standing there, her hands folded in front of her, the dress-like garment she was shown wearing forming perfect folds as it hit the ground, barely allowing for her feet to be visible from certain angles, the goddess looked almost like she was trying to tease her, like she was dangling the answers to her questions in front of her face, laughing to herself as Zelda proved to be unable to find them.

The voices were there in the back of her mind, but even as Zelda leant against the row of carvings, feeling the cold stone press against her forehead, the barrier refused to budge no matter how hard she tried to push through it, to reach out and grasp the powers and answers they had come there to find. A gust of wind blew through the room as she gave up, making the hairs on her arms stand up as Zelda sat there, for a moment simply looking at the stone in front of her.

It was not working. They had spent weeks travelling through Hyrule to reach this point, and still, only one of them possessed the mark that had been so common in the legends. Only one them seemed to be fully acknowledged as one of the goddesses’ chosen ones.

If that had been where the thoughts would begin and end, perhaps she would have been able to brush the dirt off her knees and get back up, but even though, rationally, Zelda knew that it was better for two of them to have exhibited some signs of truly being specifically chosen, the thought that, if only one of them had also failed entirely at harnessing their powers, then she would not be alone in looking up at the goddess, whispering a prayer for her to let her see where she should go from there under her breath, the only answer she received being that of the goddess continuing to look down at her with the same smile that had been carved into the stone all those centuries ago, was one she could not deny, nor could she push it away.

“Please.” Zelda heard her voice break, but even if she had wanted to, she doubted that she would have been able to cry. They were so close that she could almost feel it, every barrier but that last one gone, and still, she could not wield her own power like Ganondorf and Link had done. “I just want to know why I am the only one of us who has yet to find that strength inside. Please, just tell me, what is wrong with me?”

“Zelda!” the yell echoed above her, the vaulted ceilings throwing the word around, distorting it slightly as Zelda hurried to put on a smile before she looked up to see Ganondorf excitedly gesturing for her to come over to where he had stopped right in front of the statue, using his hands to amplify his voice as he repeated himself. “Zelda, there is something you have to see—you too, Link!”

In a heartbeat, they abandoned everything they were doing. Zelda had, admittedly, not been doing much, but she still heard a crash as Link simply dropped the pot her had been holding. Sending them a sheepish look as they both followed the source of the sound to see how the remnants of the pot lay as broken fragments on the ground, he hurried to catch up with Zelda, both of them running up the stairs to come to a halt next to where Ganondorf was already pointing towards a spot on the statue.

As she tilted head to the side, Zelda tried her best to guess what it was that he had seen. To her, while surely being the result of talent she did not possess, the carving of Hylia’s dress did not look like it contained the answers they were searching for, nor did the bricks that made up the floor of the temple look like they would tell them how to break the cycle.

Clearly seeing through their attempts at pretending to know what he was telling them to look at, Ganondorf pointed towards the spot where the folds of the dress had created a couple of square metres of flat surface. “Look! Look, right there. There is slight indent in the stone right here, and if you look closely, you can see that there is another one here, this one feeling like the Triforce, with some kind of text having been carved into the stone below it.” Ganondorf moved his hand across the little area of nearly untouched stone, and although she was not sure she would have thought to notice it if it had not been pointed out to her, Zelda could just barely make out the outline of a Triforce that looked almost like someone had pressed the design against the statue, using enough power to leave a copy in the stone, as Ganondorf motioned towards the floor below their feet where Zelda had just had to step around a little concave hollow in the floor where the stones had been placed to make it look almost like someone had thrown a ball directly at the floor with enough force behind it to create a depression upon impact. “And just look here, this part of the floor, just around this depression, has somehow been lowered a bit.”

Having knelt down the moment Ganondorf had mentioned the floor, Link ran his hand along the lines between two rows of bricks, looking back up at them again with wide eyes. “He is right. It is not much, barely a millimetre lower than the rest of the floor, but with how the lowered area forms a perfect square with the hollow in the centre, I doubt that it is a coincidence.” as Link looked between the two of them, it was easy to guess what he was thinking, and still, Zelda heard the little wheeze of a sharp intake of breath leave her as he continued. “Do you think that this might be it? Do you think that this is what we were meant to find here?”

Before Zelda had a chance to even begin to collect her thoughts to try to figure out anything to say about the situation, Ganondorf had already nodded, reaching out to help Link back up from the floor, clearly not having to think twice before answering. “Yes, of course. I mean, what can it be but this? Now, the only issue I can see right now is the fact that it still does not tell us anything about what we are supposed to do. I mean, someone clearly took the time to carve a Triforce into the statue and make it as unremarkable as they could, but I cannot figure out what kind of message they would have wished to convey to us by doing that.”

It was a lie. The way Ganondorf glanced towards his right hand made that more than obvious, but Zelda could still appreciate his attempt a not drawing attention to the fact that he was the only one who had been marked as possessing one of the virtues and as such one of the pieces of the Triforce for what it was, an attempt at not bringing back the despondent atmosphere that had followed them up to the Great Plateau.

But if he was trying to spare them the pain of reminding them how it was absurdly obvious that they still had yet to figure out what to do about the fact that not only did she and Link both lack their piece of the Triforce, she still had yet to even gain the ability to manifest her own powers, Zelda saw no reason to outright try to ruin the attempt, so looking back towards the flat spot on the statue, she tried her best to think of anything to shift the topic of the conversation towards, that thing ending up being the little lines beneath the Triforce, Zelda gesturing towards it before turning towards Ganondorf. “You said that there was text beneath it, didn’t you?”

He hesitated for a moment, clearly trying his best to cover up that fact as he nodded. “Yes, I think that there is some kind of inscription, but I can’t understand it—and before you ask, no, I am sure that it is not just Hylian. It has been years since I would come across entire lines of text that I could not understand.”

“I wasn’t about to say that. With how old the temple is, it is probably Ancient Hylian.” Zelda placed her hand against the smooth surface of the statue, soon finding the little lines that had been carved into it. They would not have been visible to anyone who were not actively looking for them, Zelda only barely able to follow the lines as she ran her hand across the stone, trying her best to get an idea of how they would have looked when written down on paper.

“Uh.” the sound of Link stepping from side to side, clearly torn between wanting to say something and the wish not to disturb her, tore Zelda away from the statue as she turned to look at him, Link’s cheeks reddening slightly as he nodded towards the inscription. “I listened when they talked about that… uh, language in school, I swear, but... I have no idea about how to read it.”

“No, I don’t think they thought it in school either, or at least, they didn’t in my school. My father signed me up for classes—something about being aware of the history of Hyrule or something like that and that having studied an extinct language would look nice when I would be a politician. I never really learnt much, but, with a bit of luck, it should be enough for me to get an idea of what it is saying here. Just—give me a moment to focus, will you?”

They did not say anything, which was enough of an answer by itself as Zelda once again leant in against the stone, letting her finger follow the lines as she mumbled to herself, trying to get an idea of what the words were supposed to say.

At first, it was all a jumble, symbols she did not understand blurring together with what little she could remember from her classes to form one long line of indecipherable text, her heart speeding up as her hope began to dwindle. They were so close, sitting inside the Temple of Time after they had followed Impa’s instructions. She could feel the presence of the voices from the spirit realm around her and knew that if she only knew how to reach out towards them, she would have been able to ask one of the princesses who had been alive back when Ancient Hylian had simply been modern-day Hylian for help, but Zelda could not break through the invisible wall between them, only feel how they must all be cheering for her. That was what made her grit her teeth and continue, pushing away the overwhelming temptation of giving up, admitting defeat and trying to live with how she could already imagine the disappointment on Ganondorf’s and Link’s faces when she would turn around to tell them that she could not read the text and that they had reached a dead-end, and little by little, the symbols began to take shape in her mind, shaky and uneven, some of them so worn by age that she could not determine whether she was reading them correctly or if it had originally been meant to be an entirely different symbol but at least giving her an idea of what she had to work with.

Turning around to face Ganondorf and Link again, Zelda was met with the sight of both of them staring intensely at her as she began to draw in the dirt on the floor, forming a quick copy of the inscription to better allow her to gather her thoughts. It did not quite look like the symbols she had tried to learn back in class, but it would suffice. It had to. Pointing towards the beginning of the sentence, Zelda did her best not to think about whether she sounded dumb as she began to think aloud, hoping that it would at least lower the risk of forgetting parts of the translation halfway through. “All right, so the first line of the text mentions something about… unclouded senses, I think, but it could also be something about seeing things clearly. Then, the next one—I think it rhymes.” leaning in over her own transcription, Zelda nodded to herself. “Yeah, this is definitely supposed to rhyme, which is a good sign for my chances of being able to get more meaning out of this. Anyway, I think we have something about a god—no, wait, it’s a goddess, and voice—a goddess’ voice. We are… supposed to listen to the goddess’ voice and then…” a wind swept in through the open doors, destroying the last line of text, but she had already got through it, and although they were still far from having actually achieved anything, Zelda could feel a surge of pride in her chest as she was able to finish the translation, “it says something about a path being revealed or made clear—so roughly the same thing either way.”

“All right.” Ganondorf spoke while maintaining eye contact with her. “So all in all, the text says that we are not seeing things clearly right now and that we have to listen to the goddess’ voice to know which path to take?”

“Yeah, that is the general gist of the text, unless I have seriously messed up something—well, it was a bit more poetic, I think, or at least I have never seen those symbols towards the end outside of poetry, but, yeah, that is the core of the message that was left behind.”

“Guys.” Link said the word flatly, almost being so quiet that Zelda would have missed the fact that he had spoken at all if it had not been for Ganondorf looking towards him. He had stepped back, away from the statue, his neck craned back as he looked up towards where Hylia smiled down from up high above them, something about the way he kept on looking at her, without blinking, making it seem like he was in a trance. “I think that the statue is trying to tell me something.”

Zelda’s stomach turned painfully, but there was no time for her to dwell on that or the question of why she was the only one who had yet to feel any kind of full connection with her past incarnations and her role in having to bring an end to the cycle, for the next second, Ganondorf had already rushed to Link’s side.

Looking like he had to do everything in his might to keep himself from reaching out to place a hand on Link’s shoulder, Ganondorf’s expression rapidly shifted between concern and something akin to glee as he regained control, taking a deep breath before speaking. “What is she telling you?”

“I… I can’t tell you.” looking back over at them, his eyes wide and the pupils dilated, Link appeared to be honestly saddened by his own words, instantly making the question of why he could not repeat the goddess’ message fall away from Zelda’s thoughts as he moved towards the stairs, already running down them as he waved at them, gesturing for them to follow him. “I just know that I have to head outside.”

He continued to run towards the open doors, not giving them another moment to begin to question whether or not it was the right thing to do, both Zelda and Ganondorf abandoning the statue and the attempt at making sense of what was happening to follow him.

Zelda had assumed that he would stop right outside the temple or head through the courtyard towards one of the smaller, more private rooms, but Link continued past that, running down the stairs, taking them two steps at a time, until the bricks below their feet were replaced by dirt and grass, and even then, he still continued running for another couple of minutes. By the time he finally stopped, the three of them standing at the edge of a pond, Zelda had to place her hands on her knees as she recovered her breath.

“Link, I…” there must have been something Zelda was missing as Ganondorf spoke up, something that would be able to explain the apprehensive edge to Ganondorf’s tone, but she simply could not figure it out, instead merely registering the fact that Ganondorf spoke with the feeling of being far away from the two others clouding her thoughts as he continued, “are you sure that it is a good idea for you to be out here? Because I am sure that if we just continue looking for clues about what to do inside the temple, we will find that the answer has been right there in front of us this whole time. You really don’t have to—”

“I know that you will try to persuade me not to do this, Gan. I know that, and I know that you might have convinced yourself that this is not necessary for us to be able to advance and find a way to bring an end to this cycle, but this is something I have to do.” Link’s voice was calm, even, everything that Zelda was not as she looked up and connected the dots between how Link had taken another step forwards, standing right at the edge of the water, looking down into the pond as Ganondorf had gripped onto his sleeve, and just what he was saying.

He was going to jump into the water. It was not something she needed to ask him about; everything about the way he was standing, knees slightly bent, his chest revealing how quickly he was breathing, face pale but with a decisive look flickering in his eyes as he clenched his jaw, made sure to let her know that. He was going to do it and she could not let him.

“Stop!” already hearing how the pitch of her voice was sure to be much shriller than she had ever heard it be before, Zelda stepped forwards to join Ganondorf in holding on to his sleeve. Immediately, she could feel how he was already leaning towards the water. If they were to let go, gravity would take hold of him and pull him towards the surface of the water where the sun was reflected in the slight ripples. She heard that certainty in her tone as she looked up at Link, hoping that he could hear everything she did not say out loud. “Link, you don’t have to do this. I know that we will find something inside the temple. The statue said to listen to the voice of the goddess, that doing that would allow us to experience the world with unclouded senses, and I _know_ that if I just got a couple of minutes more in there, then I would be able to break through whatever it is that is keeping me from accessing my powers—I swear to you that I will, I just need a bit more time.” it was pointless, her rambling attempt at convincing both Ganondorf and Link but most of all herself that she could do it achieving the exact opposite. The way Link looked at her for a moment, something that looked too much like compassion in his eyes making her look away, only served to further emphasise that.

Still, he shook his head at her. “I know that you are both trying your very best to think of a way that would allow me to avoid doing this, but this is what we are meant to do. I am meant to dive into the water here. I don’t know why, but as I looked at the statue, this was what I knew I would have to do. Zelda, you translated the text. You know that I am right.”

“I do.” it felt too much like admission of guilt, too much like she had just been caught while having fled the class to escape from the other children, but it was the truth. She knew that it was what the text had told them to do, the instruction that had been left behind as the only clue about what to do to bring an end to the cycle. There really was no other way but that did not take away the fact that she could not look up at Link without seeing the moonlight shine on his face, the memory shifting, shadows replacing light as she looked over at him to see the shine of armour in the dark corridors of Hyrule Castle, the image changing once again to show the soft fabric of a shirt he had hastily pulled over his head when he had been waken up moments before the ceremony and the beaming a smile of a stranger that looked at her from across the marketplace of Hyrule Castle Town, all of it fading into another smile, another face, another memory.

She must have lost her balance, must have begun to sway to the side, for the next thing Zelda knew, Ganondorf had reached out to, with the hand that was not holding on to Link’s sleeve so tightly that his knuckles had turned white already, wrap an arm around her to keep her from falling into the lake. Looking up at him, she saw both the worry in his eyes and the flicker of looking between her and Link, his muscles straining as he struggled to hold on to them both as he focused his attention on Link.

“I get that, but, still, you don’t have to do this. I know that—”

“You are wrong.” there was no malice in Link’s voice as he interrupted him, only the softness of someone who had accepted the reality around them. “I do have to do this. I just want you to know that if anything happens, if I panic while I am in there, there is nothing you could have done to keep it from happening. Ganondorf, _please_ understand that I would have told you about this earlier if I had had the words to do so—I—” Link’s expression was filled with pain and Zelda could see how the memory of Aryll flashed in front of his eyes, her own mind recreating it, how it must have felt to swim towards the surface after having gone to swim in the lake with his younger sister, relaxed and happy, only to look over at her and see how she was not responding, lying still in the water, the pain not receding at all as surprise made his eyes become wide when Ganondorf kept him from finishing the sentence.

“I know.” finally letting go of Link, Ganondorf made sure that he had recovered his balance, no longer leaning towards the water, as he shook his head, his expression mirroring Link’s. “I know about Aryll. I may not be aware of the full story, but I can piece most of it together.”

“I—” Link’s gaze moved from Ganondorf towards Zelda and then back again.

It was the first conclusion she would have reached if she had been in his place, hardly something she could blame him for, but even though Zelda could remind herself of that, could try to push the feeling back down, it was not enough to keep her from showing the way it hurt to know that he believed that she might have told him, the way Link’s gaze rested on her face for a moment too long letting her know that the pain was visible in her eyes as Ganondorf shook his head.

“She didn’t tell me. I could figure it out on my own. Did you think that I had not noticed the way you looked like you feared for not only your life but ours as well when we told you about our plan of sailing across Faron Sea? I saw that, Link, just as I noticed the fact that you could not stop looking towards Zelda after you all but pulled her out of Regencia River, how you refused to rest for even a moment as long as we were near Squabble River, and how you panicked after falling into the water at Deya Village. I saw that you were afraid of the water, so of course, I knew that something had happened. The only thing I struggled to figure out was just what that something was, but the way you acted in the wake of Zelda cutting her hair was enough to let me know that it was about Aryll. So I am telling you right now that if you really do believe that the statue asked you to dive into this pond, then I will not try to convince you not to do it again. But if you are doing this out of guilt over what happened to Aryll, then take it from me when I tell you that you have nothing to feel guilty for.” as Ganondorf fell silent, the arm he had wrapped around Zelda to help her recover her balance was shaking so much that it almost added to the risk of her falling more than it helped her, but as Zelda stood there, looking up at Ganondorf to see how his lower lip was quivering, the tears making his eyes shiny, she knew that she would never have pushed it away.

Just as Ganondorf looked like he was seconds away from bursting into tears, Link was pale as he looked over at them, a fact that made the red ring around his irises even more visible, his eyes already red and puffy as if he had been crying for ages as he shook his head. “I… thank you, Gan. Thank you so much. You too, Zelda. I—” a sob took the end of the sentence, Link having to press a hand against his chest, fighting to force a breath all the way into his lungs before he was able to finish it, “I don’t have anything I can say to you other than that I am so grateful for—Farore, for you telling me all that. I… I thought that—not that you would not have cared, but maybe that neither of you would have noticed.”

“Of course I noticed.” wiping away the tears with the back of his hand, Ganondorf was able to send him a weak smile. “You are my friend. Both of you are. I don’t know where I would have been if it had not been for you two.”

“Neither would I.” with how Link steeled himself as he once again looked down at the surface of the water, Zelda knew what he would say, but that did not change the fact that it felt like the rest of the world ceased to exist, all sounds dimming to let Link’s voice be the only thing they could hear as he continued. “But I have to do this. This—I can’t tell you that the part of me that is doing this for Aryll does not exist, not without lying at least. But this truly is the only way for us to figure out where to go from here. I have to do this.”

Zelda could see how the last of Ganondorf’s arguments fell away, how his shoulders fell as he accepted the inevitable, simply bowing his head at Link for a second before meeting his gaze. “Then, I wish you luck.” there was nothing else for him to say, Ganondorf not pausing for a moment before asking if it would not be better for Link not to dive into the pond with the sheath still around his hips, the sword adding unnecessary weight, nothing left at all other than the acceptance of what they had to do.

They stood back and watched as Link took one last breath before diving headfirst into the water, what looked like an attempt at breaking through the surface with grace hindered by the sword at his side and his clothing, Zelda partially shielded by the drops of water that were sent flying through the air, but Ganondorf gasping as his left sleeve became soaked.

Taking in the damage, unable to fully hide the fearful glances he continued to cast in the direction of the pond, he smiled down at her. “You would think that he would be better at that, would you not?”

Zelda tried to keep the conversation going, but all the attempt amounted to was a strangled chuckle, silence descending on them as they both turned towards the pond to search for any signs of Link being about to swim back up to greet them.

The pond had looked shallow while standing at the edge of the water, but now, as Zelda looked out towards the little pillar of stone that rose up above the water near the middle of the pond only to see the stony surface disappear into the darkness of the water, it was all too clear that she had misjudged. The pond was deep, deeper than she had expected and certainly deep enough to keep her from being able to catch even a brief glimpse of Link, leaving her with no way of knowing what was happening down there, if he would be all right. He had to be, but as she stood there, the passage of time slowly but surely chipped away at the confidence that the next second would be the one where he would swim back up to them, Zelda counting to the rhythm of her heartbeat for a moment to keep track of time before giving up as the frequency increased with every moment Link spent down in the water.

It appeared that Ganondorf thought the same, for Zelda could hear him count to himself at her side, and while she could not hear just what number he had reached, she would not have been able to miss the moment it apparently exceeded the amount of time he was willing to wait, Ganondorf having already halfway pulled his tunic over his head as he turned towards her. “I am going in after him. No matter what happens, wait for us here.”

“But what—” the sentence was never finished, for the next second was the one where Link finally broke through the surface of the water, the sound of him gasping for breath causing both Zelda and Ganondorf to look directly over at him.

As he tread water, disappearing below the surface a couple of times as he tried to push a couple of wet strands of hair out of his eyes before giving up, it was almost easy to believe that he had only been gone for a couple of seconds. Only the rapid rise and fall of his chest revealed that it had been over a minute since they had last seen him, the way he clutched something close to his chest, the object emitting a faint orange light, revealing the reason for why it had taken him so long.

Falling to his knees at the edge of the water, Ganondorf was quick to reach out to grab onto Link’s outstretched arm and all but drag him towards the shore, and before Zelda had time to do much other than step away and make space for him, Link was back on dry land, water dripping from his clothes and hair, a victorious smile on his face and what looked like a ball made of stone with an orange design covering sections of it in his arms.

Ganondorf was the first of them to speak, looking at how a little puddle had already formed at Link’s feet only to pull him in for a hug, Link letting out a surprised yelp before he realised what was going on, shifting the ball in his arms around to allow him to return the embrace with one arm as Ganondorf moved back the few centimetres that allowed him to look down at Link. “Are you okay? Was everything all right down there? Why did it take so long for you to come back up—Zelda and I were getting really worried about whether or not you were going to—”

Link held up his free hand, instantly making Ganondorf fall silent as Link shook his head, the motion causing his hair to fly around his head, sending water everywhere, something Link seemed to be aware of with how he smiled at Zelda, pulling her in for another embrace the moment she took a step towards him. His hair and clothes were still dripping with water, but neither of that mattered as Zelda leant against his shoulder, Ganondorf putting his arms around both of them as Link began to explain. “I know, I know, and I am sorry for having given you guys a reason to worry. But I—and I can’t explain why even though I know that it sound weird—I just knew that there was something in that pond that I had to find.”

The ball was poking against the lower part of Zelda’s ribcage, the pressure not feeling painful but not exactly pleasant either, as Ganondorf’s baritone echoed above her. “You are talking about the stone… thing.”

“Yeah, I am talking about… I don’t even really know what it is, but I think that it is the key we were supposed to find here, so let’s go and see if I was right.”

Breaking free from the embrace, Link once again led the way, but where he had walked with a decisive weight to his steps when they had gone out to find the pond, now, he looked almost giddy, alternating between not quite running and not quite walking as they made their way back across the area between the pond and the temple, skipping steps on the stairs seemingly because he enjoyed it more than because he was pulled forwards by an invisible force. Exchanging looks with Ganondorf, neither of them daring to say anything out loud with how Link would sometimes make a sudden jump, twirling in the air to look back at them before finishing it with half a pirouette to continue to walk in the direction of the Temple of Time, Zelda could only speculate about whether or not they both suspected the same thing of being the reason for that. The water of the pond had seemed dark when they had been looking at it from above, but maybe it had felt different to be submerged in it, to know why it was necessary to jump into it. As Zelda tried to remember the shaking man Ganondorf had had to pull out of Deya Lake, there was not much of the horror that had been present in Link’s eyes at that time to be found in the memory of how Link had allowed Ganondorf to pull him out of the lake, already smiling as he was pulled in for a hug.

It was perhaps something they should have stopped to talk about, but as they reached the entrance to the temple, Link running inside with only a short glance in their direction, it felt only right to remain silent, to instead share one last smile with Ganondorf as Link sprinted up the stairs, almost dropping the ball he had pulled out of the water as he spun around to look back over at them, gesturing for them to hurry up.

“Look, here.” he was already pointing at the hollow in the floor, looking between it, the ball in his arms, and the two of them as he came to a stop next to it. “I think that we are supposed to place the ball here. It looks like it is going to fit.” moving his hand slightly to get a better hold on the ball, Link knelt down next to the lowered section of the floor.

Zelda could tell from the gasp that escaped Ganondorf that he too had noticed the change.

By shifting his hold on the ball, Link had revealed not only the back of his left hand, but also the appearance of a mark so much like Ganondorf’s that had it not been for how the triangle that had been filled in was the lower right one rather than the upper piece of the Triforce, they would have been practically identical, the mark almost glowing against his skin as Link looked up at them, his eyebrows rising as he took in the way they were both staring at him.

“What? I get that the text did not outright tell us to do this, but—”

“No, it is not that. Just—look at your left hand!” Ganondorf’s voice was low, carrying the kind of excited urgency that Zelda would have associated with the Festival of Hylia in the past, the kind of glee that would wake her the second the sun was in the sky to allow her to spend as many hours of the day as she possibly could awake.

Link must have figured out what they had seen a moment later, the excitement making his eyes shine as he repositioned the ball, using his knee to keep it from rolling away as he placed it on the floor, to look down at his hand. Even from where she was standing a little metre away, Zelda could hear the gasp and the little giggle that came between Link’s first attempt at saying anything and the first sentence they were able to understand as he turned to face them again. “Do you think that…?”

It was a question with an obvious answer, but Ganondorf still sat down next to him, reaching out to show him the back of his own hand. “Of course it is the Triforce. What else would it be? I mean, Link, you just dived into the water to get this thing!” nudging him in the shoulder, Ganondorf let out a laugh, and for once, rather than trying to argue against it, Link simply laughed along and allowed Ganondorf to repeat it once again, stressing the last half of the sentence.

From her spot next to them, standing only a few steps away from the joy and celebration of the appearance of Link’s mark, Zelda could not have felt more removed from them and their happiness at seeing the mark. The guilt felt heavy in her stomach as she tried her best to push the feeling away, to deny it any room in her mind, only for it to remain there, stubborn and impossible to shut out despite how she tried to tell herself that it was something good, that she should be happy for the fact that Link had finally received the mark of his part of the Triforce. It was good, both for their chances of saving the world with how he had just faced his fear and memories of losing Aryll and pushed through it, but even as she tried to remind herself of that, Zelda could not ignore the little voice in her head that reminded her of how it left her as the only one without a mark.

Ganondorf and Link rose from the floor, their chatter becoming a blur in her head, Zelda only barely managing to understand that they were about to place the ball in the hollow, unable to even begin to process whether or not it was a good idea. Neither of them looked over at her, and logically, Zelda knew that the last thing any of them were thinking about was the fact that she was left as the only one who had yet to prove her worth at all, but that did not change the fact that every word she was able to catch felt like it was directed at her, the way Ganondorf reached out to place a hand on Link’s shoulder as they seemingly came to a conclusion about their plan only making her notice the lack of weight against her own shoulder. It was an illogical fear and something she, if she was able to pause to think about it for half a second, knew she was the only one thinking about, but as she stood there, the square of lowered bricks between herself and Link and Ganondorf, that was all that filled her thoughts as Ganondorf looked over at her.

The sound echoed around her, but it still took her another second to realise that he was saying her name. Hoping that her face did not reveal any of her thoughts, Zelda placed her hand behind her ears, painfully aware of the fact that the couple of metres between the two of them would never be able to convince Ganondorf that she had truly not been able to hear him.

The way he furrowed his brow for a moment, the crease between his brows barely having time to appear before it was gone again, told her that she was right, but at least he showed her the little mercy of not asking why she had been distant, instead waving at her as he repeated himself again. “I was thinking that it would probably be best if all three of us were standing close to each other when Link places the ball in the hole. Just, you know, in case anything happens.”

“Which, hopefully, it will,” Link added, barely looking up at her from his position on the ground, one hand behind the ball and the other one resting against its side, the mark of the Triforce put on display as he did the absolute minimum to keep the ball from rolling away.

“Oh—uh, yeah, of course!” buying herself a moment to collect herself by reaching up to brush a stray strand of hair back behind her ears only to once again be reminded of the fact that the short locks would fall in front of her face again in only a couple of seconds, Zelda hurried across the floor, making sure not to step into the depression, lest it would somehow be able to sense that she did not truly belong there, having to hide the surprise on her face as Ganondorf took her hand, pulling her a bit closer as Link gave the ball a little shove.

It rolled across the floor like it had been created with exactly that purpose in mind, balancing between falling into the little groove and rolling to the side for a fraction of a second before continuing on its course to finally come to lie still in the hollow.

Zelda could not describe the sound that echoed through the hall, the sound of it almost bringing back memories of having gone to turn on the computer when she had known that she was supposed to be asleep during the holidays she had spent with Urbosa, the sound feeling louder than thunder as Urbosa appeared in the doorway, barely bothering to tell her that she was supposed to be asleep before she went over to ask her what had made her get out of bed again, the warmth already filling the air around Zelda as the designs on the ball glowed brightly, emitting a blue light, the light soon spreading to form a circle around the ball, the intensity of the light reaching a level that was almost painful before the ball disappeared in front of their eyes.

From next to her, Zelda could hear Ganondorf’s surprised whisper of ‘what the—’ but that was also all they had time to say before the entire world began to shake around them.

Finding herself thrown off balance, almost falling to the ground, Zelda could not have been more grateful for how Ganondorf acted without hesitating, moving towards her and Link and using their momentum to send all three of them rolling towards the statue of Hylia as dust began to fall from the ceiling, the part of the floor they had just been standing on beginning to crumble away from below them.

Zelda only barely managed to soften her fall by letting her arms hit the floor first as she rolled over to watch how, rather than allowing the floor to disappear at once, it almost seemed like the bricks of the lowered section of the floor were pulled further into the ground one by one, soon disappearing from view behind the line that further proved how the rest of the floor did not seem to be affected in the same way.

“Zelda!”

Only as Ganondorf reached out for her, yelling her name as he pulled her back down to the ground, did Zelda realise what she had been about to do, how she had already almost crawled over to the edge, away from where the statue of Hylia provided them with a bit of cover from the dust falling from the ceiling. He acted not a second to early, for he had barely managed to pull her back to where he and Link lay with their backs pressed against the statue before a tile, seemingly knocked lose by the rumble, fell from the roof, smashing against the ground only half a metre in front of Zelda’s face, Ganondorf hauling her back to throw his arm over her face just in time to shield her from the shards.

They stayed like that, all three of them huddling together, trying to take up as little space on the floor as possible, for what felt like ages, Zelda finding herself stuck between Ganondorf and Link as they watched several other pieces of brick and tiles fall from the ceiling, only waiting for the moment where the entire temple would come crumbling down around them, letting them know that they had caused the demise of all of the chosen ones and done what not even several millennia had been able to do.

However, that moment never came, the shaking stopping as suddenly as it had begun, all three of them remaining where they had spent the entirety of what Zelda in hindsight could see was probably a matter of half a minute for another couple of seconds before Link slowly pushed the arm Ganondorf had thrown over him to keep him from trying to repeat Zelda’s plan of moving out in the open away to do exactly that.

Zelda could hear how Ganondorf let out a little gasp as Link took another step towards the gaping hole in the floor, staring down at it as he made his way around it before looking back over at them, still alive, still not crushed by any tiles falling from the ceiling.

To her surprise, the expression on his face was not one of fear of dejection but rather a smile as he nodded towards the chasm in front of him. “It is fine! Look, the bricks formed a staircase leading underground!”

The hesitation was still palpable as Ganondorf let go of her, extending a hand to help her up from the floor as he and Zelda made their way over to join Link on the other side of the hole in the floor. There, rather than looking at a deep hole that had been left beneath the temple to act as a trap, Zelda found herself looking at a staircase leading below the temple, the soft, grey colour of the stones that made up the steps revealing them to be the bricks that had fallen away when the ball had been placed in the hole. The steps disappeared into the darkness, leaving Zelda unable to tell where exactly the staircase would end.

Standing there, the floor of the temple covered in dust and broken tiles, they must all have been thinking the same thing, but the seconds still passed by, Zelda almost counting a minute before any of them said anything.

Of course Link was the first of them to move, taking another step towards the stairs before turning around to look back over at them. “I think… I think that we are supposed to head underground,” he said, and though his voice should have shook, shown how he was nowhere near certain about his idea, as he cast another glance into the darkness that awaited in front of them, his voice only grew firmer, “yes, this was what that text was talking about when it said to listen to the goddess and having unclouded senses. We were meant to retrieve the ball to activate that mechanism and now, we are meant to descend the stairs.”

Ganondorf remained silent, still gaping at the sight in front of them, and that alone was alone was enough to confirm what they all knew was true: the road ahead lay at the foot of the stairs.

Clearing her throat, Zelda could only hope that she was able to convey even a bit of the confidence that had been obvious in Link’s voice. “All right. If no one has any arguments against the plan, then that is what we are going to do.”

A second passed and then another, but neither of them spoke up to raise any concern about the idea that they would be heading underground, beneath a temple that had already proved to be located on unstable ground. Instead, Zelda heard how her own deep breath was followed by two others as they all began to descend the stairs.

It did not take long for the light of the sun to be blocked out as they found themselves in a spot Zelda decided had to be directly below the statue of Hylia, but although they should have been wandering in the dark, Zelda could still see just as clearly as if she had been outside in bright daylight, could still continue to move down the steps rather than having to lean against the wall to keep herself from tripping. Next to her, both Ganondorf and Link appeared to have experienced the same, Zelda hearing an impressed outburst from her left, Link reaching up to cover his mouth with his hand as both she and Ganondorf turned to look at him.

“I was just—I didn’t expect to be able to see down here!”

Zelda was a second away from telling him that they were not trying to make him feel attacked when Ganondorf shook his head at Link. “It is not that. I just… I have a weird feeling about this place, so could we perhaps hurry up? I really don’t want to spend more time down here than what is absolutely necessary”

They could, and before long, they found themselves standing in what appeared to be the entrance to a large cave system, the roof of the cave disappearing up into the darkness as Zelda craned her neck to try to get a sense of the size of the area around them.

It was impossible. Though she could see better than she should have been able to so far underground, the roof was too far away, the darkness once again coming together to hide it, a single glance being all it took to confirm that the same was the case for where she should have seen the walls of the cave around her. Other than the stairs they had just descended and the tiny square of light that was the hole in the floor they had just uncovered, all Zelda could see was the way the cave grew narrower few metres away from them, a structure that looked like it had been made by people rising up in front of her, bricks and stones having been stacked up on top of each other to divide what lay behind it from the rest of the cave, the carvings around the entrance carrying the air of having taken years to make, only a small hole in the wall allowing her to look at how a faint blue glow seemed to beckon them, drawing them towards the other side of the doorway. Above the door opening, Zelda could see what she assumed to be a plaquette, but with the darkness in the room, it was impossible to tell whether or not it was supposed to say anything. All Zelda could say for sure was that they were supposed to head inside, to journey further into the cave and follow the glow from the other side, so after exchanging a look with Ganondorf and Link to see that they too were looking in the same direction, they continued forwards.

Where the cave had been wide enough for Zelda to find herself without any hope of being able to see the roof of it or the walls around her, as soon as they had passed through the entrance, the cave grew smaller, becoming little more than a corridor, the floor of it inclining slightly below their feet as they walked deeper and deeper underground. At her side, Zelda could see how the blue glow illuminated carvings that appeared to have been etched into the walls, looking like nothing she had ever seen before. They did not carry the touch of the combination of sharp and rounded lines that had been characteristic for the carvings decorating the Temple of Time, nor the sharpness of the designs that had covered the ball they had placed in the hollow only minutes ago. Instead, the carvings looked strangely angular, leaving Zelda unable to determine just what they were supposed to show, an uneasy feeling resting in the pit of her stomach nonetheless as Link walked ahead, looking not at the carvings on the walls, but rather at how the blue glow was joined by a purple substance.

It seemed to be alive, moving towards them from further down the passageway, long, magenta tendrils floating above the substance as Link held up his hand, gesturing for them to stop. Zelda did so without hesitation, already seeing how Ganondorf did the same at her side, a muscle in his cheek twitching as Link knelt down next to the purple material, slowly reaching out towards it.

He had barely touched it, Zelda only noticing the little flash because she had found herself staring at him without blinking, but Link still drew back his hand so quickly that the motion blurred together, a pained scream escaping him. Ganondorf already at his side, Link clutched his hand to his chest, clenching and unclenching it as he looked down at it, shock and pain clear on his face as he spoke, sounding like he was talking to himself more than to the rest of them. “It… it hurt me. How?” once again looking down at the substance, something entered his gaze, his eyes becoming darker.

Before she was able to think about what she was doing, Zelda was at his side, placing a hand on his shoulder, entirely aware of the fact that he could so easily reach out to touch the mass again without her having time to stop him. “Don’t touch that!”

Thankfully, Link obeyed the command, withdrawing his hand as he turned to face her, his eyes so wide that she would never have been able to miss the way his pupils looked like they had dilated to take up the spot where his irises should have been, only returning to their normal size as he blinked, looking from her and over towards Ganondorf, shaking his head, a fearful look crossing his face before he sent a stare in the direction of the purple miasma. “I… I don’t know what that is, but I don’t think that we should touch it. It… Farore, it felt like all my strength had been taken away from me the moment I touched it.”

All of them turning to look at how the purple glow of the substance grew in intensity, Zelda unable to shake the feeling of the pulsating way the magenta tendrils moved through it looking like a beating heart, they did not say anything in response to that, nor was there any need to. As they once again continued to walk down the corridor, they all made sure to walk next to the wall, putting as much distance between themselves and the unknown material.

The corridor felt like it went on for forever, but, finally, it opened up, the three of them stepping out into another cave, only, rather than having the roof disappear into the darkness, as Zelda looked up, she could see just how a stalactite hung from the ceiling hundreds of metres above her head.

Trying her best not to think about the risk of the effects of gravity becoming too much for the bit of rock that kept it up there, how it might send the stalactite hurling towards them, Zelda followed Link and Ganondorf as they moved through the cave, walking along the glowing path of blue stones that rose up from the ground around them, creating a barrier between where they were walking and the rest of the cave, an obstacle that neither of them dared to try to cross as they followed the path towards the sound of roaring waters, Zelda soon having to place her hands over her ears as she craned her neck to try to get an idea about what the source of the roar could be.

A couple of minutes later, she received her answer, the smooth rock below her feet replaced with bricks as they moved from solid ground and over onto a bridge, a single look to the side revealing the river that ran through the cave several metres below them. Looking down, Zelda could see how a rock protruded from the water, the waves crashing into it. Forcing herself not to look down again, she ran to catch up with where Ganondorf and Link had already reached the other side, relieved to once again be back on solid ground.

In front of them, the cave continued, the glowing stones casting long shadows around them as they moved past yet another wall with carvings etched into it. It could have been the result of the fact that she did not dare to look anywhere else, too scared of what else might be hidden in the cave, but as Zelda ran her hand over the surface of the wall, she could not tear her gaze away from the scenes that had been carved into it. Though it was not clear to her what the shapes and lines were meant to depict, some of it looking like it could have been a mistake and other parts again looking like they had taken weeks and years to create, there was one thing she was certain of as they moved along the wall, the cave once again closing in around them, and that was that it had been left there for a reason. There was no other way to explain it, no natural processes she could think of that could have created the images, one of them looking almost like a human, its face turned skyward, something that appeared to be a weapon having been planted in the chest of the person.

“Ganondorf?”

In the silence, that was all it took for her to get the attention of both Ganondorf and Link, the two of them turning around in an instant, Link’s hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his shoulders drawing a tense line before he looked at her, still not letting go of the sword as he and Ganondorf walked over to where she had stopped.

“What is it?”

It should have felt childish to admit that, for a brief second, the dancing shadows on the walls had made the scene look alive, but as Zelda tried to explain it to them, she saw the same fear reflected in their eyes, Link tightening his grip on his sword as Ganondorf moved closer to the wall, reaching out to let his hand follow the line of the weapon in the person’s chest.

“I…” Ganondorf’s voice was low, the word allowed to trail off as he furrowed his brow, his thumb moving across the spear-like weapon to reach the person, stopping at what Zelda assumed to be their face, the sharp, angular lines creating a mask of pain she would never have expected to see in any modern-day carving. “I think that I remember this.”

Zelda felt her heart sink to rest in a spot near her stomach as Ganondorf leant in towards the wall, his gaze intense in a way she had never seen it be before, unwavering and without a shadow of the person she had come to know over the past months to be found in his eyes, as Ganondorf rested his forehead against the wall.

Next to them, it would appear that Link thought the same, for, still keeping a solid grip on his sword, he closed what little distance that still remained between them, hand already outstretched to land on Ganondorf’s shoulder as he opened his mouth. “What do you—”

The question was never finished, for the next second, Ganondorf had jerked like he had just had an electric current run through him, backing away from the wall, his eyes wide and with his mouth forming silent words as he knocked Link’s hand aside, turned on his heel, and ran away from them, continuing deeper into the cave system.

“Ganondorf, wait!” Link’s voice was thrown back at them from all directions, echoing through the air, Zelda hearing how stalactites fell from the ceiling in the cave they had just left, crashing against the ground as Link yelled Ganondorf’s name once again.

It had no effect, Ganondorf already having put several metres between them, the soft glow of the stones at their side only barely providing enough light for them to still be able to see him. In just a moment, he would disappear into the darkness.

Without a word to each other, Zelda and Link began to sprint after him, the scenes flying past them as they ventured deeper into the cave, battle after battle after battle passing in front of her eyes as Zelda struggled to let her mind remain anchored to the present, the lives of those depicted in the carvings on the wall flashing in front of her eyes, thunderclouds having gathered to send lightning down around them as she saw how blades met one another, metal crashing alongside bolts of lightning as the battle raged, finding herself passing in and out of the different scenes as she ran through the corridor, almost tripping as the floor began to incline. Stopping for a moment to take a deep breath, Zelda forced herself to remain in the present, to look at where Link was sprinting in front of her, screaming Ganondorf’s name at the top of his voice, the name thrown back at them by the walls around them, Ganondorf still a silhouette in the distance as he continued to run despite their pleas for him to slow down and wait for them.

Zelda felt it before she saw it, the way the corridor came to an end, leading them out into yet another cave. However, where the other caves had been so large that she did not have any doubt that the entirety of Hyrule Castle Town could have been located within them without having the roofs of the skyscrapers come close to touching the stalactites hanging from the ceiling, the circular room they found themselves in was much smaller, the entire floor sloping downwards to meet in a single point at the centre of the room where a stalagmite cut through the floor, pointing directly up towards the ceiling. As the glow of the stones disappeared behind her, the room should have been left in the same kind of darkness she had been able to see through, but as Link came to a sudden halt at her side, Zelda hearing a gasp fill the room without knowing who had been the one to let it out, that was not what happened.

Instead, a green light rose up from the very centre of the room, twisting and turning as it grew longer, never losing it shape as it formed a spiral, long tendrils floating in the air around it. It looked alive, Zelda finding herself frozen to the spot as she looked down and saw how it moved with an unknown purpose, bathing the room in a sickly green glow, moving with too much purpose behind its movements for her to look at it and see nothing but yet another source of light like the stones in the caves behind them had been.

However, where she and Link had stopped upon seeing the light, Ganondorf had not done the same, and though Zelda could hear Link scream his name at her side, she could do nothing but look at him in silent horror as he ducked below the tendrils of light, crossing the last couple of metres that had separated him from the very source of the light.

He held out his hand, time slowing down around them as Zelda saw Link rush forward the second before Ganondorf made contact with the rock.

In a heartbeat, the room was left in darkness, the twirling light seemingly absorbed by the stalagmite. Then, Ganondorf’s scream filled the room as the light ran up his arm, soon enveloping his entire body.

Zelda was halfway through the room a second later, but even then, Link was faster. As the light exploded in front of them, filling the cave, Zelda just barely had time to see it made contact with Link, sending him crumbling to the floor, before it had reached her as well.

It felt like every last nerve ending of her body was on fire, Zelda losing all control of her muscles, thoughts, and memories. She was barely able to see how the room tilted around her as she fell to the ground, the green light coming to fill her entire field of vision before everything turned dark, leaving her to the sensation of falling without anything to stop her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So close to the end, and now two of them have the Triforce on the back of their hand. As for whether or not Zelda will ever achieve the same, we will just have to wait and see...


	25. Chapter 25

The darkness was one she had never seen before. It was not the same darkness as the one she had experienced when she had been a child, scared of the dark but with a father who insisted that she would not be able to sleep with the light on, having pulled her duvet up to cover her head to put a barrier between herself and the monsters she was sure was right out there in the darkness, nothing like that time she had gone into the basement to find the supplies for some experiment Purah had wanted to show her, only for a teacher to fail to notice the fact that she was in there and turn off the light, nothing like any of that, the memories flickering in front of her eyes before disappearing, leaving her unable to even hold on to them as she continued to fall through the never-ending darkness. Closing her eyes did not change that, but even then, Zelda squeezed her eyes shut as a headache began to form behind her eyes, clinging on to what little sense of control she could maintain as she hurtled through the air with nothing at all to stop her, questions of gravity and air resistance going through her mind faster than she was able to register them, the only thing she was able to know for certain being that she must have reached terminal velocity already, that it was only a matter of when the ground would rush up to meet her.

She fell for ages, with nothing to help her ground herself or give her an idea of how long she had been there for, nothing at all to think about other than the how it would end, the seconds chipping away at every emotion until Zelda was left with nothing but the quiet acceptance of her imminent demise as she opened her eyes, finding herself looking at the clouds around her rather than the darkness that should have been there.

Blinking again, expecting for it to disappear to reveal how it had been nothing but an illusion created by her own mind in an attempt at distracting her from the fact that the ground was going to mean the end for her no matter what she did, Zelda looked out at how the clouds continued to fly past her. It should have been cold, raising the question of whether she would freeze to death before she was able to reach the ground, but as Zelda looked around her, slowly beginning to accept the fact that if she were to die she might as well try to remember what it was like to feel almost weightless, the clouds did not disappear, did not allow her to fall through them. Instead, they grew denser around her, Zelda feeling how one of them moved towards her arms, pushing against her. It was a message, but it still took another second before Zelda was able to understand it and even longer before she was willing to try, still expecting for any moment to be her last as she shifted her weight to the side, leaning backwards to find that she was no longer falling through the air but rather standing still, the clouds somehow able to hold her up despite how she knew that they should not have been solid enough to form a floor below her feet.

The instant the thought that she might not be seconds away from dying dawned on her, the world exploded in a flash of colours around her, images appearing and disappearing in front of her eyes, staying there for less than a second, barely enough to let her look at them before they were gone again, flames rising up against the stone walls of a castle, a horse galloping across a field, someone holding on to her to keep her from sliding to the side in the saddle, shadows creeping in towards her as she sat in front of a window, looking out at how the city below her was shrouded in darkness, the world bathed in a grey hue, her limbs feeling heavy as colours coruscated once again, the moon being all that met her eyes as she looked up.

The scenes and images continued to flash in front of her at a rapid pace, ignoring how she closed her eyes and pressed the heels of her hands against them to try to block it all out, moving past her to be replaced with another scene in a seemingly endless row of memories she could not recall. It could barely have been more than a second since it had begun, but by the time a faint light appeared in front of her eyes, Zelda was sure that she had seen thousands of memories. The light was not bright, barely even there, a little spot for her to focus on as the flashes passed by in a blur of colours and emotions, but she held on to it, feeling how it reached into her, sending a tendril towards her to pull her closer to it, her breathing growing less erratic as she forced herself not to look at anything other than the light.

The images came to an end just as quickly as they had appeared, leaving Zelda to herself. No matter where she looked, how much she craned her neck or how she tried to spot anything around her, the only thing she could see was white. Gone were even the clouds, leaving her to stand in absolute nothingness.

The sound of her own heartbeat was loud in her ears as Zelda realised her mistake. She was not alone, not anymore, at least. In front her, her back turned towards her, haloed by a light that cast an ethereal glow around her, stood a woman in a white gown. Both the fabric and her hair billowed around her despite the lack of wind, the gentle wave of her hair combining with the glow to make it seem like pure light.

There was no doubt in her mind about the identity of the woman, but Zelda still found herself speechless, having to try twice before she was able to get a word over her lips.

“Hylia?”

The woman did not react, neither turning around to face her, nor moving away as Zelda took a shaky step forward, aware of how the floor materialised below her feet with every step as she raised her voice a little. “Hylia, I—we need your help. The world depends on it.”

Only a couple of metres were left to separate them. The goddess was bound to have heard her, and yet, she did not show any reaction to her plea, continuing to look towards a point in the distance as Zelda paused, lacking the strength to take another step towards her. It was exactly how what she had feared it would happen, that they would come so far only for her to prove once and for all that she was not chosen after all, and yet, even as she stood there, with the goddess barely ten metres away from her but ignoring her pleas for help, the panic did not seize her. Her heartrate did not speed up just as Zelda did not glance down at the back of her hands to confirm what she already knew to be true, that they were as bare as they had always been. Instead, she continued to look at Hylia.

The gown she was wearing reflected the light around them, little rainbows weaving in and out of the fabric, but as Zelda focused on the dress itself, pushing away the surface impression of a goddess who was far removed from her own world, the glow around Hylia seemed to dim, her hair no longer a source of light as it fell to rest against her back, the fabric of her dress, though still pristine, falling to rest against the floor rather than billow in the wind.

“Hylia.” Zelda said the name, but it already felt wrong in her mouth, like there was something she should have remembered as she looked at the woman in front of her, taking in the way her hair grew shorter, no longer cascading down her back but instead pulled up into an intricate updo at the top of her head, the idea of perfection ruined by the knots that ran along the tresses that had escaped the hold of the hairpins fighting to keep the bun in place. No matter who the woman was, continuing to call her Hylia felt wrong, but it still took another moment before Zelda was able to name the reason for why the word died on her tongue to leave only a single sentence behind. “You… you are me.”

The woman turned around, revealing a saddened smile that looked too much like her own as she tilted her head to the side, looking over at Zelda like she was not sure how to approach her before bowing her head. “Yes,” she said, her voice echoing around Zelda, melodic where her own had been hoarse, pained where she had only just begun to believe that there might be hope ahead, “I am…”

Released from the feeling of being kept back by invisible bonds, Zelda took another step towards her, and as she stopped right in front of the woman, Zelda found herself able to notice the little differences between them, see how it did not stop with how the other woman’s hairstyle looked like it had required hours and several helpers to manage, the jewels that had been placed at the end of the hairpins reflecting the light around them to form a crown of light that ran along the front of her hair, but instead continue to her face to see how the fine lines around her mouth and eyes spoke of an age that must make her ten or twenty years older than her, see how the shape of her face and the distance between her eyes and mouth did not align with hers just as her eyes were a brilliant blue rather than green.

The conclusion was clear, but Zelda still felt how she faltered for a moment before she was able to steel herself and meet her gaze head on. “We are not the same though, are we?”

It looked like the woman considered whether or not she would be able to lie to her, Zelda looking into her eyes to see the intelligence in them as she glanced down at her, her eyes darting from side to side before finally coming to rest on her face as she shook her head. “No, we are not the same person the way you look in your mirror to see your own reflection, but we are more alike than anyone you will ever meet, and for that, I have to apologise.”

“What do you mean?” but already before Zelda had spoken the words aloud, she knew exactly what the woman had meant, just as she knew which name to call her by.

Sending her a an apologetic smile, the Zelda in front of her did not answer immediately, and as Zelda looked past her, towards where the mist in the distance grew darker as two figures moved towards them, she knew both the reason for her silence and the reason for her apology. Moving towards them, the silhouettes were a dark blur against the background of grey, but Zelda still knew exactly who they were even before they came close enough for her to see more than the outline of them.

Much like Zelda had looked at the woman in front of her and seen an inaccurate reflection of herself, the immediate impression she got of how her best friends had just appeared to stand at the woman’s sides was soon followed by all the ways they differed from whom she had wanted to see, Ganondorf’s hair having been pulled back into a ponytail rather than left loose to frame his face, the breastplate he wore bearing no resemblance to the knitted fabric of Ganondorf’s sweater she had felt brush against her cheeks all the times she had leant in for a hug, searching for comfort, and Link only resembling her friend in the way he had the Master Sword hanging by his hip, the heavy armour he still wore keeping her from being able to get a closer look at his face as he turned from her to look at the other Zelda, Ganondorf mirroring the action, Zelda herself following suit.

Her ancestor stood only a few metres away from her, the princess she had been rising to the surface as she folded her hands in front of her, shoulders lowered as she bowed her head, looking down at the floor beneath their feet for a moment that felt like it could have lasted until the end of times before finally meeting Zelda’s gaze. “I fear that we are the ones responsible for the decisions that have now brought you to us, casting you into a reality we had always fought to avoid.”

Zelda’s blood turned to ice in her veins. If she were to move, she was certain that she would have shattered into tiny shards of anger, confusion, and hurt, so she stood still, her gaze travelling from the man who at once looked so much like Ganondorf that it made her heart ache to see how he too looked down at her with an apology written across his face while also not being enough to bring back the memories of the months she had spent in his presence with how his posture, straight and alert, did not at all resemble the way Ganondorf had always looked like he was a second away from pulling her and Link in for a hug to where the man who had the same blond hair as Link was hidden from her by the armour he wore, the breastplate being the only thing she was able to see through, the wide gash that had created a hole in the metal revealing the deep green colour of the tunic he wore underneath.

Keeping herself from looking directly at the princess, Zelda instead ended up looking at spot on the floor between them, seeing how her dress was slowly changing colour, no longer the pristine white it had originally been, but rather a pale blue, mud stains reaching up from where it brushed against the floor. “Why? Why did you do this? Did you not know that the cycle would continue, that you would have had to bring an end to it entirely to keep it from returning at a later point to cause the destruction of my world? Why did you do it—did you just not care about anything that would happen once you were all dead and gone? Did you just decide to leave it all to another generation?”

“Zelda.” the man who looked so much like Ganondorf without being him took a step towards Princess Zelda, not to try to outright console her, but rather to put an arm around the princess as her shoulders began to shake with barely contained grief. “We never wished for this to happen.”

“But then why did you let it happen?” her voice was rising in volume, but even though Zelda could hear how she was coming close to yelling at the three people in front of her, all of them undoubtedly important to Hyrule’s history and figures she had read about in school but now looking small and weak as they stood there without anything to tell her, she did not stop. “Why did you allow for the cycle to gain even more momentum—why did you not try to stop it if you could not bear the thought of it manifesting during your lifetimes?”

Taking a deep breath, the princess gently pushed Ganondorf aside, Zelda not missing how she, Ganondorf, and Link all looked at each other, the way they sent a quick nod to one another letting her know that, though it had only taken a second, to them, the glance might as well have been an entire conversation as Zelda turned to face her again. “Please, try to understand. We did not know what the consequences of our actions would be. None of us had any idea that by refusing to give in to the allure of the cycle during our lifetimes, we would doom your future. We thought that we would be the last ones to be chosen by the goddesses.”

Crossing her arms in front of her chest, Zelda made sure not to let the plea for her to understand allow the anger in her to abate. “Well, clearly, you were wrong.”

“I was.” the princess did not try to deny it, and as she looked down at her, still with that expression of someone who lacked the words to explain and apologise for all that had happened, Zelda could almost convince herself that she saw her own childhood in her eyes, all the days of trying and failing to live up to the expectations of those around her, all too aware of the fact that she was being measured against the impossible standard of not only her father but also her ancestors.

However, for as much as Zelda could see a reflection of herself as she looked at the woman in front of her, they had not shared the same childhood. She had been the daughter of a successful politician, but the princess in front of her had grown up as the heir to the throne of Hyrule, having undoubtedly been given the burden of knowing that she would one day have to rule the country from a young age. Zelda could only imagine what that must have been like, how it must have felt to know that no matter what she might do, no matter how much she might try to rebel, she truly would never be able to escape. It was not something she wanted to experience, not even in her mind, but even then, she found that she could not look away as the princess maintained eye contact. She could only look up at her and see every reason she had had for having acted the way she had back then.

When the princess finally broke the connection, turning her gaze away from her, it took everything in her not to gasp for breath, to let her breathing even out rather than give in to the feeling of having been about to drown in another person’s memories as the princess shook her head.

“I know that you have no reason to wish to listen to me, that I am not owed your forgiveness, but will you at least allow me to tell you what happened all those years ago?”

Rubbing a hand against her neck, trying to force the sensation of drowning to subside, Zelda cast a glance at how Ganondorf and Link had moved closer towards the Zelda who was standing between them, the vision of the three of them standing there in front of her flashing before her eyes to reveal the memory of the months she had spent in the company of her Ganondorf and Link. The memory disappeared a moment later, but it was still enough for Zelda to nod despite knowing that she would come to regret it.

At least the princess did not give her time to change her mind and tell her that she was no longer interested in hearing what reasons she might have had for dooming her world before she began. “As I am certain you have realised by now, I grew up as the crown princess of Hyrule, before ascending to the throne when I was sixteen. I was, and still am, the thirty-sixth queen of Hyrule.”

“You were the regent during the Second Hyrulean Civil War!” Zelda caught herself a moment too late for her to slow down, the rest of the exclamation coming to fill the air between them even as she tried to stop it.

If she was annoyed by the interruption, Zelda hid it well, only raising an eyebrow in response, her voice sounding almost flat as she nodded. “Yes. As I had feared, the devastation that engulfed Hyrule in the years after my coronation reached a scale where it went down in history. But, to answer the question you did not ask, yes, I was the ruler of Hyrule back then. However, the reason for why you are here today, why you and your friends followed your hearts to reach this place to bring an end to a cycle that began even before the first spark appeared to ignite the flames of war, can also be found in the years that preceded the war. You see, only a little year after I had been crowned queen of Hyrule, we received a message of merchants having been attacked at the border between Hyrule and the Gerudo Desert. So, as the regent of Hyrule, I arranged for it to be possible for me to meet with the person who, at the time, was the king of the Gerudo.”

Before she was able to hide her train of thought, Zelda had already cast a glance towards Ganondorf, the man sending her a tired smile as he opened his mouth to continue the story. “We reached an agreement about how we would have to station guards near the border to protect those who wished to make their way through the Gerudo Highlands and to let the thieves who had been attacking them know that the merchants would be protected by the regent no matter which kingdom they were in. That was how I came to meet Zelda for the first time, having arrived to the tent she had put up on the Hyrulean side of the border with a little army of guards to protect me, only to find that the queen of Hyrule had only brought one, the swordsman who wielded the blade that was said to seal the darkness.”

“Do you mean…?” Zelda could not bring herself to finish the sentence but they must still have guessed how it would have ended as she found her gaze drifting over towards Link.

“Yes.” the princess nodded. “Link had been appointed as my knight a year before I had taken the throne and had already been able to draw the sword, and as such, all three of us were brought together by fate that day, with the knowledge that there might come a day where our destinies would make us point our weapons towards each other.”

“But you didn’t.” Zelda frowned, noticing how all three of them refused to meet her gaze, looking to the side to avoid making eye contact for even a moment. “Clearly, you did not fulfil that destiny. If you had, I would not have been standing here today as I would never have set out to bring an end to the cycle for good after having lost everything.”

“We can’t actually know that for sure.” Ganondorf spoke slowly, clearly trying his best not to upset her, but still with the weight of a king behind his words. “With the way the cycle has played out for millennia, this could have happened even if we had not resisted the pull, if only on a smaller scale.”

He was not trying to push away the blame. Zelda had to remember that, as difficult as it was as they stood there in front of her, the people whose legacy had been how they had been able to bring an end to centuries of wars before dying at a young age as the Second Hyrulean Civil War broke out. Taking a deep breath and hearing how her voice shook, she levelled a cold stare at the princess until she finally looked back up at her. “Since you know so much about the cycle, then how could you not have been aware of the fact that you were making it gain more momentum by refusing to let it play out in your own time? How can it be that I had to learn about all of this now when you seemingly knew about it back then?”

“We… please believe us when we say that we never had any intention of letting the cycle continue—”

“But you did. You did let it continue,” Zelda said, for once not caring at all about the way Link moved forwards, almost stepping between her and the princess before Ganondorf held out his hand, gesturing for him not to, Link walking back to stand next to her instead, the motion allowing for Zelda to catch a glimpse of the scar that ran down the side of his face, continuing over his right eye, before the shadows of the helmet once again covered it in darkness.

Once Link had stepped back, Ganondorf faced her again, shaking his head, the motion making his hair fall in front of his shoulders. “I know we did, but you have to understand that even though the idea of the cycle and our destinies was more widely known to be true rather than blurring the line between myth and history the way it does today, we had no way of knowing exactly what any of it entailed, so when I met Zelda, even though we had all heard about the prophecies talking about how the wheels were turning, we thought that we could bring an end to it by refusing to give in to the idea of destiny. We fully believed that that was all it would take for us to end the cycle for good: to deny it the power to make us do its bidding that one time. By the time we realised that we were wrong and that our friendship alone was not enough, it was already too late for us to change what had happened and would happen in the future.”

Her head was spinning, Zelda struggling to make sense of it all. The three figures almost seemed to blur together in front of her, Ganondorf reached out to sling an arm around Zelda’s shoulders, Link letting go of his sword to do the same, all three of them looking over at her as she tried to take in what they were saying.

A friendship. That was what they were saying they had been counting on to lead them through it, failing to realise that it would only be enough to delay the cycle rather than bringing an end to it completely, but even then, there were still so many things that did not explain, so many questions she still did not have the answers to, that it took everything in her not to let the frustration seep into her voice as she looked back over at the princess. “So the three of you became friends and decided that you would not allow the cycle to take hold of you and make you become enemies?”

“Yes.” the princess’ voice was small, but she still answered, a steely glint in her eyes. “I… I am sure that you can understand what it feels like to meet someone who understands you only to then discover that some destiny that was decided long before you were even born says that they are meant to become your enemy. It was not what any of us wished for, so we fought back. We held on to our friendship even as everything around us seemed to come together in one last attempt at making us obey the cycle. It was only once it all stopped and we found ourselves signing the peace accords to bring an end to the centuries of wars between our countries that we knew we had been wrong to believe that it would be as simple as that.”

“But then why did you not… I don’t know, tell someone or write it down somewhere? Maybe we could have saved people if we had known that the cycle was real and that it would strike someday.” Zelda could hear that she was clutching at straws, the sad smile the princess sent her only serving as further proof of that. There was nothing that could have been done to avoid the disease and the deaths, nothing at all. Even if a warning about the cycle being more history than legend had been a part of Zelda, Ganondorf, and Link’s legacy, chances were that they would either have failed to understand it, and even if it had not been lost to the passage of time, there would have been no way of knowing when it would strike or how the cycle would manifest. For all Zelda wanted to believe that they would have been given a warning and a chance of figuring out a way to avoid the cycle and their own destinies, there was nothing the people in front of have could have done to change what would happen once the cycle had passed by.

She could see all of that and more in the princess’ eyes, and still, Zelda remained quiet, awaiting an explanation as she knelt down in front of her, the strands of hair that had escaped from the updo at the top of her head falling in front of her face, shielding her from Zelda’s eyes as she looked down at the ground while speaking. “We knew that the cycle was not so easy to break and that it would return later, so when a row of failed harvests and talks of overthrowing the monarchy in Zora’s Domain erupted into a civil war in Hyrule and Link was one of the first to die, we were selfish enough to believe that that was the worst thing that could happen, that our misfortune was the only price we would have to pay for our failures.”

In the silence that followed, the only thing Zelda could do was to take in how the princess’ shoulders were shaking, Ganondorf kneeling down next to her, whispering something to her that Zelda could not hear nor bring herself to make an attempt at understanding. Instead she found herself staring at Link, for once fully taking in his appearance rather than letting it begin and end with the similarities he shared with her Link.

The uniform he was wearing, the different pieces of armour that must weigh him down as he stood there in front of her, silent and still, were old, a few pieces missing, revealing the tunic underneath, but as Zelda forced herself to continue to look at him, she could see the remnants of the war in the dark stains that covered the fabric, most likely a sign of the wounds he had sustained. Slowly taking in everything, from the way he had walked towards her, prepared for an attack, to how he was still standing, only the slight movement of his helmet as he turned his head serving to let her know that even if he was not sitting down next to them, he was still watching Ganondorf and Zelda, making sure that they were safe as they rose from the floor again, Ganondorf maintaining a grip on Zelda’s elbow, she finally found herself faced the gaping hole in his breastplate. The more she looked, the more it felt like she was able to notice, Zelda seeing the glint of a sword and how the soldier stumbled backwards from across the battlefield, a scream frozen in time as she turned back towards the princess.

“You…” she had wanted to ask them how they had even been able to keep the cycle from repeating during their lifetime, how they could have done that when it had happened countless times before, the legends passed down to form the basis of everything they knew about the Triforce until it became more myth than fact, but as Zelda looked at how they were standing in front of her, the feeling of trying to hold on to her friend as his breathing grew weaker, his pulse only a faint rhythm when she pressed her finger to his wrist, still fresh in her mind as a memory that was not hers flashed in front of her eyes, the question was rendered superfluous.

Maybe the princess could see her memories just as she saw hers, seeing what she had been about to ask her, for, with a little tug near the muscles around her mouth that did not come close to resembling a smile, she broke through the heavy silence. “Yes, Zelda. We thought that that would be the end of the cycle. We fully believed that we would see it die with us, so when it became clear that that had not happened, you can only imagine what it felt like to see it all happen again.”

It all whirled through her head, finished thoughts crashing against despair as she looked down at the ground, only realising that she was crying as she saw the tears begin to fall, her voice thick with emotion as she forced the words out of her mouth. “But if you could not even figure out the way to bring an end to this cycle, then how are we meant to do it? We went here to find the answers, but we have none. I—I don’t even have my powers—I have nothing at all that can help me break through this, I—”

The weight of someone placing their hands on her shoulders made her fall silent, Zelda finding herself looking directly into the princess’ eyes as she raised her head, the other woman looking down at her, decisiveness making her eyes shine as she spoke. “Zelda, you do have your powers and you do have the answers to all the questions you came here to ask us. That is what will see you through this and allow you to succeed where we all failed.”

She was trying to comfort her, making her voice firm as if that would allow Zelda to find solace in the promise, but all Zelda could do was to shake her head, pushing her hands aside before taking a step back, away from all three of them. “No, I don’t! I haven’t been able to reach the spirit world yet, I haven’t got the mark on the back of my hand, I haven’t figured out anything yet, and unless you can tell me what I will have to do to end the cycle for good, we are not going to find the answers in time. So please just answer this question, can you help me find out what I am meant to do?”

The way they all looked down at the ground, Link being the first to actively do his best to avoid eye contact but soon joined by Ganondorf and then, finally, Zelda, told her everything she needed to know, Zelda staggering backwards, a hysteric laugh torn from her throat as she felt the world begin to crack around her, the pressure building up. It was over. They had fought and tried to prevent it from happening, but now, they would be stopped by the fact that she had yet to receive her mark.

Around her, the wind was howling, rushing past her, but Zelda still heard every word the princess said as chaos filled the world, her hair a mess around her head. “You do stand a chance. This is not the end, I promise you that, Zelda, you only have to search for what you are looking for in the right place.”

“Then tell me where that is!”

The princess only sent her a long look in response to the yell before shaking her head. “I am afraid that you are still not seeing the reality around you for what it is, Zelda. Please, I beg you. Look around you—try to find out why you were brought here.”

“I was brought here by the curse.” the answer came promptly, Zelda not even having to envision the way the green energy had floated through the air to envelop them all to remember what had happened, the pain that had shot through her before she fell.

It was something she was certain of, and yet, the princess only regarded her without uttering a word, pain visible in her eyes as she let the silence reign for another moment before bringing an end to it. “No. You were brought here to save yourself. This is not a realm created by the curse. This is yours and this is where you are at your strongest—if you allow yourself to let go of the doubts.”

Zelda could have opened her mouth and demanded a better explanation, but as the outline of Ganondorf and Link grew softer, less defined, the two of them fading away in front of her, all see could do was to look on in silent horror as the princess raised her hand, moving towards her to brush the strands of hair that had fallen in front of her face aside, her hand already seeming like little more than mist in the air as she repeated her words one last time before disappearing entirely, leaving Zelda behind.

The floor was cold, but Zelda barely felt it, falling to her knees as she looked into the mist that went on for as far as she could see, halfway waiting for the moment where everything would end and hoping that the floor would give way below her to once again let her body go into a free fall.

The seconds passed, her heartbeat being the only thing that brought an occasional reprieve from the silence, and little by little, the anger began to fade away as Zelda stared off into the distance. It should not have happened, not when her very last chance of finding out what to do had disappeared before her eyes, but as she pushed herself up, first struggling to balance rather than swaying from side to side but soon standing with her feet solidly planted on the ground, she must have found one last shred of hope, allowing it to give her the strength to try one last time to harness her powers.

Closing her eyes, Zelda was about to reach out to place her hands against the barrier and make one last attempt at pushing through it, but something kept her from going through with it, Zelda instead opening her eyes to once again look around her. The mist was thick, but as she kept her gaze fixed on one spot, Zelda could still see the smiles of those she had known and recall how it had looked from her perspective when Urbosa had bent down to lift her up onto her kitchen table, keeping an eye on her to make sure that she would not fall off rather than telling her to get down from the table, the times she had been let back into the laboratory during a break in school after Purah had promised the headmistress that she would be able to look after herself and not cause trouble, how Ganondorf had offered her both the shirt and the toy she would only later come to learn had been his sister’s, sharing the few things he had left to remind himself of her with a stranger, the moment Link had appeared from the forest, yelling at them to lie down while he chased off the bear all on his own, glass raining down from above as they were rescued from the Yiga Clan, the feeling of having seen Impa before, past and present meeting whenever she was near her, Paya letting her know that even if Zelda could not say the same about herself, there were people out there who believed in her. It all whirled together, faster and faster as she looked at it, before coming to an end to instead let the face of someone she had almost forgot about shine through.

Zelda stood, feeling like she would not have been able to move if her life had depended on it, and watched as the image of her father grew sharper in front of her, and although she could not hear a word, simply looking at him was enough to know what he was saying, the words echoing around her.

_You are going to do great things someday, Zelda. I know that you are._

Whether or not it was real, a memory that had been buried over the years, or a dream appearing in front of her, Zelda could not tell, nor did it matter. None of it did, really, not as she closed her eyes, this time keeping herself from reaching out, from doing what she knew would inevitably end with failure as she would find herself faced with a barrier she could not push through, to instead shut out every last sense to focus only on the feeling that grounded her to the place.

It took several attempts, but she could not give up, not when she was finally beginning to understand what the room around her meant, why she had been able to reach it by holding on to the light she had seen in the middle of all the darkness, and so, rather than reaching out to be met with a wall, Zelda waited, letting the warmth and light fill her body, the voices rushing towards her the moment she was able to let go of the fear of having them disappear into the darkness.

The voices surrounded her, some of them almost familiar, some of them belonging to strangers, melodious, rough, hoarse, and high, but as she stood there, letting the energy flow through her, for once not feeling any constraints around her, one of them rose above the rest. Zelda could see the way the princess smiled as her voice came to fill the room.

“Well done.”

Looking down at her fingertips, Zelda saw the glowing tendrils of energy through her skin, moving through her as she closed her eyes once again.

Finally, she knew what she would have to do and how she should do it, so even as the peace and quiet of the room around her fell away to once again let her be surrounded by darkness and the knowledge of her future being uncertain, Zelda was able to relax, to take a deep breath and remind herself that she would be all right in the end. As long as she could remember what mattered and have the courage to go through with the plan, they still stood a chance of bringing an end to the cycle.

That was what she held on to as the world became silent around her, Zelda once again finding herself overcome by the sensation of weightlessness as she feel through the air. It only lasted for a fraction of a second, however, the freeing feeling of almost floating soon replaced with water seeping into her trousers as she fell to her knees in the same second as a crash of thunder filled the air around her, the bolt of lightning illuminating the scene in front of her as she raised her head and looked at what might as well have been a nightmare with how the horror rose up in her chest in response to the sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, Zelda finally has the answers to the question of why she and her friends are alone in the world as well as the self-acceptance she will need now.
> 
> ... and a tiny cliffhanger as well :)


	26. Chapter 26

Everything about the scene in front of her told of a fight that had been going on for ages, the green tunic one of the combatants wore already stained red by blood, but the figures still moved with the strength and fury of someone who had only just picked up their sword moments before, ready to deliver the killing blow the moment their opponent would lower their guard a centimetre, metal glinting in the brief glimpses of light that would fill the world as the grey sky around them continued to rain down bolts of lightning, crashing alongside their swords.

Moving forwards with a series of feints, finishing it off with a jab that his opponent barely managed to avoid, ducking under the blade to roll aside, already back on his feet by the time the next attack came swinging down in the form of the razor-sharp blade of the Master Sword, there was not much of the person she had come to know over the months to be seen in Link’s grim expression, his eyes focused on nothing but his target as he let out a yell, leaping up into the air to gain more momentum, the stroke blocked at the last moment. Gone was the smile and the way he would chuckle at some reference she did not understand, all signs of him being about to pause for a minute to reach out to offer a helping hand to the person across from him replaced with white-hot anger that, for a moment, made Zelda pause, the hope in her chest she had worked so hard to finally find flickering like a flame in the wind before she clenched her fist. She had made her decision and knew about the risks. Now, she would have to go through with it.

Looking over at the last person inside the void they had been taken to, Zelda forced herself not to stop with looking at him, to look past where his hair had become flames that ran down his back, past how the sword in his hand, wide and with jagged edges, glowed dark as he swung it, the tide of battle slowly turning to his advantage, instead searching for a sign that it was not too late yet.

With how they moved, faster and faster, one attack leading into the next, a long series of strokes being parried every time as the hero moved around Demise, searching for an opening in his defences, it should have been an impossible idea that she could see the traces of her friends behind it, and Zelda could feel how the influence of the room washed over her, carrying with it the memories of the time that had gone before, her arms being pushed against her sides as she saw it all through a layer of amber, panic filling her mind for a moment before she was able to breathe, slow down, and hold on to the memories that were her own. Closing her eyes, Zelda could almost recreate the moment the ground had begun to shake in her mind, recall how Ganondorf had got them all out of the way moments before they would have been crushed by the falling debris. Dwelling on the moment she had realised that he had just saved both of their lives, Zelda opened her eyes again, and this time, she saw the cracks in the lie.

Raising up her hand, breaking free from the crystal she had been trapped in was as easy as realising that it was not there, that she was still herself and not the goddess or any of her ancestors as the amber shattered around her, allowing her to once again find herself standing on the ground, the water this time retreating before it could soak her boots, revealing itself to be as fake as both the prison around them and the idea that she would have to follow the course that had been set for them all those years ago.

As she once again looked towards the glint of swords meeting in the air, Zelda saw through the illusion, the image of Demise and the hero fading away to let Ganondorf and Link take their place, both of them looking at the other with nothing but hate and contempt in their eyes, and for a brief moment, the hope wavered, Zelda looking between them without seeing a way to bring it to an end.

Swinging his sword down, Link let out a grunt as it was met by an equally vicious stroke, the sparks flying as the swords collided. Zelda could see what was about to happen before it did, see how they both moved to the side, the water flying around them as they fought with everything they had, their swords becoming a blur of grey as they both looked at the other and saw the enemy and a kind of hatred that had been great enough to fuel the cycle for millennia. It was inevitable that the battle would come to an end, and still, Zelda’s heart skipped a beat as she saw Ganondorf step back, his foot slipping in the water, sending him flying backwards.

For a second, she could see the clarity in his eyes, the sword in his hand clattering against the ground as he fell backwards into the water, all air being knocked out of his lungs as he looked up to see how Link was standing above him, but then it was gone, instead replaced with the rage of someone who had felt a hate strong enough to let it follow their enemies long after their deaths.

Time was running out, both for them, Zelda growing increasingly aware of how Ganondorf and Link were growing weaker and weaker, already having to fight to see them rather than the hero and Demise, and for their last chance of bringing an end to the cycle, their imminent failure reflected in the light that illuminated the world Link as he raised his sword, preparing himself for the killing blow.

She acted without thinking, the world shifting on its axis around her until she could almost hear Dorian’s voice in her ears, his order for them to focus on her as well ringing in her ears as she threw out her hand. “Stop!”

Light, softer and gentler than the harshness of the thunderstorm around them, filled the void, the water evaporating beneath their feet as Link froze, the sword still raised, every muscle of his body still tensed in preparation for the end. Her heart beat furiously in her chest, and Zelda could hear how her breathing was growing hectic, but she could not let go of the little sliver of control she had been given, not when she could already feel the cycle pushing against her, trying to make her falter and give in to the temptation of knowing that if she only allowed it to take hold of her, she would be led to victory. It would have been a hollow triumph, one she would lose herself in and one that would allow everything to repeat anew, so even though Zelda could feel every last bit of the world they had found themselves in push against the control, the lightning in the background rolling in against her mind in waves, she held on as she continued forwards, keeping her gaze fixed on Link, seeing how the image of the hero blinked in an out of existence as he turned to look at her, the puzzled look in his eyes revealing that he did not remember her.

“Stop.” Zelda repeated the word, her voice growing louder, joined by the wishes of the voices around her as she reached out towards them. “This is not what you want to do.”

She had misjudged. The mistake was clear in her mind, but still, it did not leave her with any chance of mitigating the consequences.

With a roar, Ganondorf rolled to the side, rising from the ground to reveal that there was not the tiniest hint of the person she had come to know as her friend left in his eyes, his hair becoming fire once again, the wound in his chest glowing bright as he turned towards her, his eyes looking like they were made of pure hate and malice as he pointed the tip of his sword at her. “You. The goddess Hylia who hid the Triforce from me. What does it feel like to know that all you misery was for nothing? You lost your hero and your divinity, and now, you will see that you have cursed your descendants as well, trapping all of us in a cycle without end.”

The words moved through the air, Zelda feeling how they wrapped around her to once again try to draw her into the destiny that had been given to them long before they had been born, carrying with them memories of a war she had never been part of but still felt familiar to her as the memories appeared in front of her eyes, war after war, catastrophe after catastrophe, one assassination attempt after another, all of it bleeding together. From around her, Zelda could hear the pained screams of those who had already been trapped inside the cycle, the different princesses rising to the front of her mind as their own demise played out in front of her eyes, Zelda seeing them try to run away from it but ultimately returning to fight back against the reincarnation of Demise’s hatred.

And then, with a voice that was barely more than a whisper, Zelda heard the familiar sound of the princess who had refused all of that, saw the smile she sent her while she reached out towards her as she opened her mouth. “You can be more than that. As long as you don’t allow yourself to be swept up into the cycle, you all can. Do you understand?”

She did. Finally, Zelda knew what she would have to do, so even though her instincts told her to move, to try to make him see reason, she did not move, did not try to flee as Demise drew back his sword, Link screaming her name from somewhere far away, the world around her becoming bathed in the light of the lightning bolts as Demise moved forwards, using his own momentum to put more strength into his attack.

It hit her directly on the shoulder, Zelda falling to the ground in an instant, feeling like her body had been set alight as she scrambled backwards, the world reduced to shadows as she looked up to see that Demise was walking towards her, a smile that spoke of how he was already envisioning his victory clear on his face as he let his sword touch the ground, looking almost bored for a moment before he raised it up again.

Standing there, he looked almost like the monster Ganondorf had feared he would become, the demon who had been the cause of the cycle in the first place, but where it should have made her look away, accepting that she had failed, that she had been wrong to think that they were not too late to stop destiny from taking hold of them, as Zelda looked up at the hate shining in his eyes, the only memory that went through her mind was how Ganondorf had looked back when he had told her about his fears of becoming the person described in the legends. He had been in despair, overwhelmed by the thought that perhaps that really was who he was meant to become, and though Zelda could not see Ganondorf through the image of Demise and the allure of giving in to the cycle as well to let them all be swept up in a cycle without end that would at least provide her with someone to call her enemy rather than having to fight a friend, she could still recall the conversation she had shared with the princess and the Ganondorf and Link of her time. Friends, that was what they had described themselves as, their friendship being what they had named as the source of the strength that had allowed them to refuse to fulfil their destinies.

Above her, Demise smiled down, the grimace looking like it was threatening to split his face in half. “Do you have anything to say, Hylia? Any last words you want to say to your hero before my curse is solidified for good?”

Zelda had a thousand things she would want to tell them before dying, a million more things she would have liked to have tried, a home she would have tried to create around herself if she had got the chance, but in that moment, none of the words that spilled over her lips were meant for Link, Zelda unable to even look towards him to try to make sure that he had understood, that he had been able to tear himself away from the temptation of losing himself to the hate, as she instead looked directly up at Demise. “Think about Riju, Ganondorf. Think about everything that has happened, about everything we have seen and experienced. Think about that time you leapt in front of Link without hesitation. Think about all the time we spent together and how many times you have saved us by now. That is what I have to say to you.”

For a moment, it looked like her attempt at getting through to him had been in vain, Demise still being all she could see as he snarled at her, drawing his sword further back, but as Zelda forced herself not to close her eyes as she waited for the last attack, instead staring directly into his eyes, she could see how long lines began to run over the surface, the lie beginning to crack to reveal the truth both to herself and him.

It looked like when she would turn a page in her book over and over again, the image of Ganondorf flickering in front of her, growing in strength until she could almost hold on to it before once again being replaced with Demise and the glint of the lightning reflected in his blade as he shook his head, letting go of his weapon with one hand to clutch at his head.

“No… no, you are not!” his voice broke on the last word, the image of Demise growing stronger, forcing Ganondorf to retreat into the background as he once again turned his attention towards her. “I admire the attempt, Hylia, but you are not going to win this last battle. That victory belongs to me and me alone.”

She was not given the chance of responding before a roar filled the air around them, a single glance to the side being all it took for Zelda to see how Link was sprinting towards them, sword raised as he once again disappeared back into his role as the hero.

There was no time to think about the idea or what end it might lead to. Gritting her teeth and summoning everything tough in her to keep herself from passing out as pain shot through her arm and chest, Zelda threw her hand out towards him, the barrier forming in a matter of seconds, glowing golden as the hero crashed against it, falling to the floor but having leapt back onto his feet a moment later, banging his fists against the wall she had created to separate them.

It had got Demise’s attention as well. Casting a long glance towards the golden glow of the barrier, something akin to intrigue passed over his face as he turned to face her again though it was soon replaced with the same kind of endless hate that had been present for the entirety of the fight, his voice rough and derisive. “I have to admit it, Hylia; I had not thought that self-sacrifice was your thing. I thought you were more inclined to let children fight your battles for you. Still, if you wish to keep the hero from being able to come between us out of some misguided hope that you will be able to stop what I began the moment I first cast my curse I will be the last to try to stop you. After all, you and I both know that this battle has always been between the two of us. All those little feints, you trying to form the perfect hero, putting him through tragedy after tragedy to strengthen his soul, and the swords we created, those were only distractions, weren’t they? I certainly know that it will be easy to bring an end to their existence once I have killed you, and now, you have just prevented the one willing to die for your cause from jumping between us.”

Even with how Zelda knew what he was trying to do, how he too was trying to fight back by pulling her in the direction he wished to move towards, trying his best to force her to accept the role of the one who shared the blood of the goddess, it was still nearly impossible to continue to fight the urge to give in to the righteous anger that waited for her behind the memories of her past, but she had to do it, if not for herself, then for the fact that she could still remember how Ganondorf had smiled as she had returned his pictures of Riju to him and how he had looked at Link while talking about Aryll, the pain clear in his eyes. If she allowed him to kill her here, Zelda knew that the last little glimpse of him that might still be in there would be gone for good, so even though her world consisted of nothing but pain, she pushed herself to make one last attempt, forcing the words out of her mouth. “Ganondorf, I know you are in there. I can see it in the way you move, how you speak; every last bit of you is telling me that you are still in there. I trust you. You will be able to break through this.”

“No, I am not!”

The light glimmered around her as the sword came down, and although she had sworn to herself that she would not let it happen, Zelda could not stop herself from blinking as the blade approached her face.

The world shook around her, but where she had expected to feel a sudden pain and then nothing, Zelda felt how the rumbles originated in a point centimetres away from her head.

Slowly, she opened her eyes, almost expecting to see the blade still being swung her, her fear having made it all slow down around her, but she only saw how Demise stumbled, moving backwards, away from her, clutching his head in his hands as he let out a scream. Pushing herself up from the floor, Zelda cast a glance towards where the sword was lying on the ground only a few metres away from them, the ripples in the water around it showing how it had slid across the ground.

The conclusion was right there in front of her, Zelda only having to reach out to accept it, but it still took her another moment to let out the breath that had pressed against the back of her throat, the shaky exhale catching Demise’s attention.

Letting his hands fall back against his sides, he stood up, but where he had been towering above her only moments ago, now, while still more than a head taller than her, he looked almost small, the last remnants of Demise falling away to leave Ganondorf behind.

“Zelda? No, no, no…” whispering her name, he looked away from her, towards where the sword had been left on the ground, his eyes widening in horror, sending him backwards as she tried to reach out for him, his gaze shifting from the sword to her face before coming to rest at a point near her left shoulder, Ganondorf shaking his head as he repeated the word over and over again.

Letting down the barrier, Zelda heard how Link ran over to join them, coming to a sliding halt, opening his mouth as if to say something before seemingly losing the words necessary to do so, instead staring at them as Zelda tried once again.

“Ganondorf, I am fine, I just—”

“No you are not!” it was as if Ganondorf had not realised that he had yelled before the words had already left his mouth, the tears making his eyes shiny as he pressed a hand against his mouth, still not looking away from her. “I… I did that. I could have killed you, and I just—he did not care at all. No,” he shook his head, the motion reminiscent of the man Zelda had spoken with moments before in how it made his hair fall in front of his shoulders, “he wanted you dead. He wanted both of you dead. More than anything else, he wanted for the two of you to die right here. I… you should have done it, Link.”

That made Link speak up, the sound of him sheathing his sword filling the air alongside his voice. “No. No, I should not. You and I both know that I would never have forgiven myself if that had happened.”

“I don’t care about you having to forgive yourself! I care about the fact that I came seconds away from killing both of you, that Zelda is probably still going to die, and that you did not honour my wish of bringing an end to it when you had the chance! I saw that you hesitated, I saw that you were able to break free of it for a moment, and I promise you that there was not some hidden part of—of _him_ that was not prepared to use that second of weakness against you! You should have done it, Link, for all of us.” Ganondorf was barely able to reach the end of the sentence, already sobbing halfway through.

There was nothing to do other than to walk forwards, Zelda trying her best not to make it any worse as she closed the gap between them, slowly taking one step after another towards Ganondorf, acutely aware of how he looked at her, his eyes flickering between horror, fear, and exactly what she was hoping to find, that little glimpse of someone who could see a tiny bit of hope in front of them as she reached out towards him.

He pulled his hand away from hers the instant they made contact, and although it was what she should have expected, Zelda had to fight to keep the disappointment from showing on her face, pouring every little bit of energy she still had left, the memories she had seen while talking with the princess, how they had become friends against all odds, holding on to their friendship as fate tried to tear them apart, into keeping the flicker of hope alive. If they could do it, Zelda had to believe that they could as well, that they would not wake up to find that this was what it had come to, the three of them coming so close to bringing an end to it all that she could almost feel the freedom against her fingertips if she were to reach out, only for them to fail in the end.

She allowed her arm to fall back against her side, hearing how Link slowly walked over to stand next to her, the two of them both looking over at Ganondorf.

He was crying. He might have tried to hide it, but as the tears continued to stream down his face, there was nothing that would have been able to keep it secret from them, his entire body shaking with sobs.

“I am all right,” Zelda repeated, not looking away from him for a moment as he finally met her gaze, “I promise you that I am all right. Even if I had not been, it still would not have been your fault.”

“But it would.” shaking his head, Ganondorf still refused to accept what she was saying, tearing his arm away from them as Link tried to place a hand on his elbow to instead cradle it against his chest, the skin covered in little cuts, mirroring those that ran up and down Link’s arms. “I should have tried more; I should have been better at pushing away his influence and to refusing to give in. Don’t you see? I gave in. We went through so much, we fought the Yiga Clan and did everything to stay alive, training with Dorian and Impa, and in the end, you almost died because I was too weak to continue to fight Demise’s influence.”

“We both lost the battle against the cycle,” Link said, making the next attempt at getting Ganondorf to realise that all would be all right in the end die in Zelda’s throat as she looked over at him to see how he too was looking down at his booths. “Gan, you were not the only one who wasn’t strong enough in the end to continue to fight against the influence of the cycle. If you had been, then there would never have been a fight at all. This happened because we both lost the battle. I know what you must be telling yourself right in this moment, that you are horrible because you did not have the strength to continue to fight against Demise, the hero, the goddess, all the things that would have made us each other’s enemies, and all I ask for is for you to look at me and tell me the same things. Look into my eyes and tell me that I too am a horrible person for the fact that I wasn’t able to let my sword remain at my side when we first came here. You and I both remember it—I was the first of us to draw my sword. If you are going to hate yourself for this battle, then you have to blame me as well.”

“No… no, I don’t.” but even as he spoke, it was evident how the conviction in his words faltered, Ganondorf looking from Link and over at Zelda. That was when it all fell away, however, his gaze coming to rest near her shoulder once again, Ganondorf looking at them with strength behind his words as he continued. “Perhaps you drew your sword, but I was still the one to let Demise’s hatred draw me into the cycle. I was the one who turned against the two of you. I was the great evil from the legends—don’t try to argue against it, Zelda; you and I both know that I am right.”

He had interrupted her before she had got the chance to do more than to open her mouth, still not having said a word, but as Zelda saw how he took another step away from them, she knew that she would have to ignore the plea. Making sure that her shoulders would not rise to reveal how, towards the back of her mind, she could still feel the tether of the cycle leading into the future, Zelda shook her head. “I am sorry, but you can’t ask that of me. I know that you are a good person, Gan. I _know_ that. All of what happened here—it was not your fault. If you want to blame anyone, then blame Demise. Blame the one responsible for having placed the curse on us in the first place, the one who was capable of feeling such rancour that it would follow the descendants of his victims into the future and capture innocents along with them. All I need is for you to stop blaming yourself for what you had no control over.”

With a laugh that sounded closer to breaking into a sob than it resembled joy, Ganondorf shook his head again. “No, that is what you don’t understand, what none of you understand—I did feel what happened. I was still there, it was not like I suddenly found myself outside my body, unable to do anything but watch as he moved me forwards, trying his best to lead the sword to hit you, I was still there. I was the one who tried to murder you, Link, using the fact that you could not bring yourself to kill me when you had the chance, and I was the one who almost took your arm off, Zelda.”

“My arm…?” Zelda repeated the words, the world suddenly appearing distant to her, like the flashes of light that had illuminated the world around her and the pain that had come to fill everything in her mind had all happened to someone else, feeling like the memories of a bad dream as she looked down, expecting to see that it had really been just that. Instead, the memory of incandescent pain whirled through her mind once again as she took in the sight that met her.

The world tilted around her, bile rising in her throat as she saw the deep gash, a bit of bone making it seem like it was shining up in her face as she closed her eyes, already feeling her legs threaten to give out beneath her. Taking one deep breath after the other, Zelda was aware of the effect her reaction would have on her attempt at making Ganondorf see reason, but even then, the guilt still felt heavy in her stomach as she saw how he looked directly at the wound despite speaking to her, looking like he forced himself to continue to stare at it long after he should have looked away, reliving the moment over and over again to find new reasons to blame himself.

“Yes, Zelda, your arm.” only a few minutes ago, Zelda knew she would have heard the words spoken with contempt as she glanced up to see Demise prepare to kill her, but now, Ganondorf sounded like he would have traded places with her in a heartbeat, taking on the wound himself. “I caused that, and don’t you dare to tell me that you cannot feel it. I know that it would be a lie.”

“I… I actually can’t feel it.” Zelda looked back down, expecting for the pain to rush against her the next second, but it never came. Instead, she found herself looking back up at Ganondorf, seeing how he wavered between being about to tell her not to lie, that he knew that she was bound to be in an indescribable amount of pain, and the part of him that still wanted to believe her. Desperately hoping that it was not too late to appeal to that part of him, Zelda continued. “I mean it. I truly cannot feel it.”

Finally, a little of the pain in Ganondorf’s eyes disappeared, allowing him to look back up at her face and then over at Link, his mouth forming the silent question before he was able to ask it out loud. “But how? How can you not feel it?”

That was a question Zelda did not know the answer to, but as Ganondorf continued to look at her, keeping his eyes on her face rather than at the steady stream of blood running down her arm, Zelda knew that she had to do something to keep it that way, so, trying her best to plaster a smile onto her face, she tilted her head to the side, the idea striking her from one moment to the next. “I am not sure… can either of you feel any of your wounds?”

At first they looked at her like they could not believe the question, Zelda seeing how they were about to interrupt one another with their answer of there being no doubt that they could feel the sting and the pain of their numerous cuts and wounds, but then, almost like a gust of wind swept past them, stealing away all sounds, they fell silent.

It took only a fraction of a second for Zelda to realise the reason for the silence as she followed their gazes.

Link frowned slightly as he looked down at how the jacket he had borrowed from Ganondorf after falling into Deya Lake all those days ago seemingly closed the tears in the fabric itself, the fabric soon appearing whole again, the bloodstains disappearing into thin air, Ganondorf reaching up towards his cheek where a gash had run from just next to his right ear down to his chin only to find his hand brushing over smooth skin, continuing up to touch the earring Link had given him after narrowly escaping the Yiga Clan as the two of them turned to look at each other, their wide eyes revealing how they were waiting for the moment where it would fall away once again, showing them how it had been nothing but an illusion created by their own minds and wishes to see everything come together again. A heartbeat passed before they both looked towards her.

Zelda could feel how the jacket she had been wearing since before they had fled from Kakariko Village, stained with both blood and mud, disappeared from around her, the familiar red and green pattern of a shirt instead taking its place as her skin closed around the gash in her shoulder little by little until the only sign of how the sword had been brought down to inflict the wound was the way Ganondorf was looking at her, his expression letting her know that he could not believe what he was seeing.

“How?” Ganondorf whispered the word, reaching up to press his hand against his mouth.

That was when Zelda saw the answer to the question they all shared, finding it in the glowing symbol on the back of Ganondorf’s right hand.

“The Triforce.” she was barely able to say the word, but they still heard her, Ganondorf turning his hand, the mark casting a golden glow up onto his face as Zelda gestured towards Link. “Link, yours must have begun to glow as well.”

A simple tug at the sleeve was enough to confirm it, the glow of the lower right piece of the Triforce reflected in Link’s eyes as both he and Ganondorf looked at her.

Zelda knew what it had to mean, was able to connect the dots between how their marks had glowed golden, having seemingly healed their wounds, and the fact that she too stood there, the deep gash in her shoulder completely gone, but even then, she did not dare to look down, too scared of what she might see, how the illusion would come crashing down around her if she were to look down and see bare skin on the back of her hand.

“Zelda…” Ganondorf said, because of course he would be the one to say it, a tiny bit of hope finally showing on his face as he gestured towards her hand, “your hand.”

She could do it. Taking a deep breath, Zelda reminded herself of how even if she would look down to see nothing at all, at least they were all still alive, at least they would be able to spend their last moments in the company of each other while the cycle gained the last bit of momentum it would need to completely bring an end to their world. With the voices of those who had come before her echoing in her ears, Zelda slowly raised up her hand, turning it around.

The glow of the Triforce filled her field of vision, momentarily blinding her. Blinking as her eyes adapted to the sudden light, Zelda found herself looking down at the same mark that decorated the back of Ganondorf’s and Link’s hand, albeit with the lower left triangle being the one that had been filled in, leaving the other two blank. It was right there, and yet she had not felt a thing, giving her no way of determining when it had appeared, what had made everything change around her.

However, as Zelda looked back up, seeing how both Link and Ganondorf were finally willing to look at her, she knew that it did not matter. The exact moment she had achieved what had been her biggest goal only a day ago did not matter, not anymore, not compared to how she took a step forward, waiting for the moment where Ganondorf would realise what she was about to do and return the gesture by backing away.

The seconds passed, and though he must have guessed her intentions, surprise passing over his face to be replaced with first trepidation and then a fragile smile, one of a person who was not sure if what they were seeing was really happening, Ganondorf did not turn from her, did not try to convince her once again that he was responsible for what had already disappeared. He did not pull her in for the hug the way he would have done before, but there was no need for that. As Zelda closed the last bit of distance between them, it was more than enough that he was there, that he did not try to move, allowing her to wrap her arms around him as she leant into the embrace until he finally returned it, his arm hovering above her shoulders for a moment before he, applying the least amount of pressure as he could possibly do while still coming into contact with her, returned the hug.

Turning her head to the side, Zelda could see how Link was looking over at them, a smile gracing his lips, and, pulling her arm free from the embrace for a moment, she held out a hand towards him, the question left unsaid between them as he placed his hand in hers to let her pull him in, Ganondorf loosening his embrace for a moment to wrap his arms around Link as well.

They were there, alive and well, Zelda finding herself at once breathing in the familiar smell of the sweater she had first seen Ganondorf in as well as the clothes they had spent the last few weeks in, and for once, they could allow themselves to breathe out fully. They had done everything they could do. What would happen next was out of their hands. The idea of being powerless to stop what would happen next should not have felt like a relief, and yet, Zelda could not bring herself to worry about it.

It happened slowly and in the blink of an eye, all at the same time, the feeling of being pulled away from herself, of having something fastened to her soul give way like the string that had kept it tethered to her had been cut in half, washing over her, the sensation of being connected to something outside her own consciousness, mind, body, and soul fading away.

As Ganondorf broke the embrace, stepping away from them, Link reaching up towards his head, a puzzled expression on his face, Zelda knew that they had felt the same, but even then, they all looked at each other, the air between them feeling almost electric as the question came to fill it.

“Did you…” still looking almost like he could not believe it, Ganondorf glanced from Link to Zelda. “Is it really gone?”

His tone, hopeful but still weighed down by the fear that he would be wrong and that the answer would turn out to be no, revealed how was talking about more than just the immediate threat of the world coming to an end, Zelda seeing the fear of what might have happened if the battle had been allowed to continue for even a second more before he had regained control shining in his eyes alongside the hope that they had not failed like those who had come before them, passing on the curse and allowing it to grow stronger in their attempt at sparing themselves from having to experience it.

Breathing in properly for what felt like the first time in her life, the only answer to the question Zelda could think of was yes, the strange feeling of weightlessness coming to fill the space that had been occupied by worries about being the one who would keep them from being able to save the world, the one who would turn out to have doomed them all by having failed to unlock her powers. As the voices faded away, Zelda could only barely make out the last goodbye, the princess pouring her gratitude into that last show of support before she disappeared for good, and though it would have been her worst nightmare only a day earlier to be able to hear what they were saying only to lose the ability again, the panic did not set in as silence filled the air around her. Instead, it allowed her to look back over at Ganondorf with a smile. “Yes, I think so,” Zelda said before noticing her mistake and rectifying it, “no—I know that the cycle and the curse are gone for good.”

There was no celebration waiting for them anywhere, nothing at all other than the endless void around them, but somehow none of that seemed to matter as Link let out a laugh, running back over to envelop Ganondorf in a hug, the momentum behind it almost making them both lose their balance, Ganondorf stepping back to steady them with a laugh as Link, still with one arm wrapped around his waist, looked back over at Zelda, beaming at her, making everything seem bright and happy around them as he gestured towards her hand. “See, you really were meant to have that!”

Zelda could only look down at where the Triforce of Wisdom was glowing up at her and see how it sent ripples of light across her skin as she watched, the tendrils moving up her arm towards her heart.

“Here.” Zelda moved without thinking, acting on sheer instinct as she held out her hands. “I need you to come closer to me.”

For a fraction of a second, it seemed like Ganondorf and Link would draw back and ask her what she was trying to do, how she could stand there and act like she knew what they would have to do, but then, the warmth blooming in her chest in response to their smiles, they reached out to take her hands, Link closing the circle by also reaching out towards Ganondorf.

The light beneath her skin grew in intensity, and as she looked around, Zelda could see that it was not only her, that Link was also glowing, his eyes seemingly transformed into pure light, Ganondorf looking back over at her, cautious joy shining in his eyes as the tendrils moved up his arms, reaching his heart in a matter of moments, blocking out everything around them.

Feeling how the world disappeared around her, Zelda should perhaps have been scared, but she was not. Holding on to Ganondorf and Link, she waited as the feeling of warmth grew stronger around them, the very last echoes of thunder fading away.

The next time she opened her eyes, it was to look at the point directly between them where a tiny source of light grew in front of her eyes, twisting and turning as it solidified, taking on a solid form as water began to pour down from above them, held back by an invisible force to form a dome around them as Zelda watched the Triforce appear in front of her eyes, the light growing to become the three triangles.

With one final coruscating bolt of lightning that illuminated the room around them, the Triforce let go of its hold on them, the tendrils that had kept her from moving once again disappearing into thin air to leave the triangle to float in the air in front of them, each of the triangles spinning gently as they watched it.

Everything that had happened, all the weeks of wishing that they could go back to change what had happened, every conversation in Kakariko Village, it all seemed like it had led to that moment, Zelda finding herself taking an unconscious step forwards to bring herself closer to the Triforce, still not letting go of Ganondorf and Link as they did the same.

“It… it is really here.” at her side, Link whispered the words that went through all of their minds, Zelda and Ganondorf looking towards him as he tore his gaze away from the gentle glow of the Triforce. “We—we could wish for anything in the world and… it would grant us that wish.”

“We can.” Ganondorf looked between them, a little tug pulling at the corners of his mouth as he appeared to see what they were both thinking. In that moment, it certainly felt like Zelda would be able to reach out and hold on to their thoughts if she were to try, so perhaps it really was what happened as Ganondorf looked back towards the Triforce. “We are all wishing for the same thing, aren’t we? To restore the world and bring back what was lost?”

“We do.” Zelda told the truth, but where the joy of their triumph should have made her leap up high into the air, she could hear the hollowness in her own voice as she looked from the ultimate power towards her friends, the full extent of what would have to happen now dawning on her. “But…” she could not bring herself to finish the sentence, could not look at them and bring up the fact that, with the cycle gone, if they were to reverse what had happened, they would have no way of ensuring that they would meet again, that their memories of each other would not fall victim to a cosmic attempt at righting the universe around them.

Zelda could not say it, but as Ganondorf’s smile grew fainter, she knew that he had guessed what she was thinking, the joy in Link’s eyes dimming a bit as they all looked at each other for another moment.

Then, finally, Ganondorf broke through the silence. “Look, we have no way of knowing how this is going to work. Maybe it will merely bring back all those who died and allow us to keep our memories of what happened. Maybe that is how it will interpret our wish.”

It was wishful thinking, and for as much as Zelda wanted to cling on to the hope of that coming true, looking at the Triforce, she could not bring herself to fully believe it for even a moment.

Evidently, the same was the case for both Link and Ganondorf, all three of them standing there, so close to the Triforce that they would have been able to touch it if they had let go of each other to reach out, finally having the power to restore balance and life to the world in before them, but feeling more removed from it than they had ever done before. Still, they would have to do it. The image of Deya Village, full of life, Paya sitting inside one of the homes, her parents talking to her from the adjoining room, Purah once again trying her best to convince the headmistress that she had everything under control despite how the state of the classroom said something entirely different, Impa, trying her best to rebuild Kakariko Village, Dorian and his family, his wife kneeling down to embrace Cottla, Urbosa and the way she would always wait in the door when coming to visit, refraining from entering the house until she had given Zelda a hug despite Zelda’s father’s protests, they were the people and the memories she would have to do it for. But even then, Zelda still found herself unable to look away from Ganondorf and Link, holding on to their hands so tightly that it felt like she would never be able to let go.

Maybe she would never have to do that. Looking from them and towards the Triforce, the idea formed in an instant, hope once again blooming in her chest as she brought an end to the silence. “We will do it together.” Ganondorf and Link seemed confused for only a second before Zelda saw the idea dawn on them as well, the light returning to their eyes as they all faced the Triforce, Zelda tightening her grip on their hands and taking a deep breath, sensing how they did the same, as she continued. “As long as we do this together, I know that no matter what happens, we are going to meet again. Just breathe, focus, and—now!”

They stepped forwards, neither of them letting go of each other as they let their clasped hands touch against the sides of the Triforce.

It quivered beneath her touch, pure energy shooting through her, and for a fraction of a second, Zelda saw it as if she was looking down at the scene from above, far removed from her body as the universe shifted around her, the pressure finally disappearing for good as the force that had been holding back the water above them gave way, sending waves crashing down around them, all three of them closing their eyes for the last time as the Triforce exploded, the golden light washing over them along with the water as the world around them became dark.

+++

She opened her eyes to find herself looking up at the brilliantly blue expanse of the sky, the sound of her breathing for a moment the solitary proof of her existence against the backdrop of the distant sound of children playing, Zelda only registering the joy in their voices, the exact words escaping her, leaving her to lie on her back and feel the warmth of the sun on her face for another moment before her breathing was joined by the echo of two others next to her.

They lay there, looking up at the sky, neither of them turning their heads to the side to confirm that the others really were there. There was no reason to. As Zelda closed her eyes, she knew that in her heart that it was true.

They had made it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that the story is over, I want to say thank you to everyone who took the time to read it. It really means a lot to me that you spent time with me on this project :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this :)
> 
> If you want to find me, I am [theseventhsage on Tumblr](https://theseventhsage.tumblr.com/).


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